So we asked researchers at Google for help. You can think of every web search that someone does for a recipe as a kind of vote, after all. The researchers didn’t focus on the most popular dish in every state, because that would be “turkey” in all 50 states. They instead looked for the most distinct.
The dishes you see listed here are the result of the analysis. The numbers next to each dish indicate how much more popular searches for it were in a given a state than in the rest of the country during the week of Thanksgiving over the past 10 years. In Michigan, for example, “cheesy potatoes” is 9 times more commonly searched (relative to population size) than in the rest of the country.
You should not interpret the dishes here as the most iconic Thanksgiving recipes in each state, or even a state's favorite dish. It’s possible that some dishes are so central to a state’s culture that people there don’t need to search for them on the web, for instance. But academic research – on everything from voter turnout to flu epidemics – has found that Google searching can be a meaningful indictor of behavior and attitudes. We certainly learned a lot from the analysis – ooey gooey bars! pig pickin cake! – and have had great fun talking about them around the office in the last few days. We hope you enjoy it as much.
Below, you’ll find the most distinct dishes – according to search volume – for each state, as well as a screenshot of what Google thinks each entry looks like.
Many Thanksgiving dishes are sugar-filled treats that go by a surprising name, such as various salads. The dumplings atop Alabama’s list are another example. Further down the list is dirt cake. Most recipes use crumbled Oreo cookie, which looks a bit like the rich soil found in Alabama’s Black Belt. It is only one of many dishes showing that Alabamans have an unmistakable sweet tooth: Butterfinger cake, million dollar pie, caramel cake and a Southern version of grape salad all suggest Thanksgiving is a time for sweets in Crimson Tide (or Auburn Tiger) country.
Smaller states bring smaller sample sizes, but we were still surprised that Alaska’s favorite dishes seem so middle American. No moose, no salmon, no reindeer or king crabs here. Just a bunch of dishes that might appear on any table in the Lower 48: Cranberry relish, Waldorf salad, deviled eggs, and so on. It may just be small sample size. Then again, check out Vermont’s list. If you’re an Alaskan who likes cooking a distinct Thanksgiving specialty, let us know what it is.
Four layer delight” is a dessert casserole consisting of a shortbread crust, topped with a Cool Whip-cream cheese mixture, then topped with chocolate pudding and finally topped with more Cool Whip. For balance.
Yams showed up more often in Californians’ searches than anywhere else, perhaps because of the state’s obsession with eating local, seasonal produce. Its San Joaquin Valley has become a big producer of yam and sweet potato, yellow-fleshed super foods. (We assume people are using the two terms interchangeably – but don’t tell that to sweet potato farmers, who deride yams as dry and flavorless).
The top-ranked dish in Colorado was “Frog Eye Salad,” which turns out to be something of a regional phenomenon, also appearing in the top 10 in Idaho, Nevada and Utah. It is especially popular among members of the Church of Latter Day Saints. The New York Times Stylebook warns against overusing the word “unique,” so we’ll just tell you that we’re not aware of any other salad that combines pasta, fruit, eggs, whipped cream and marshmallows.
