While most Americans feast on turkey for their Thanksgiving meal, side dishes vary wildly from state to state.
The New York Times, which recently published a recipe-based guide to the United States of Thanksgiving, partnered with Google to figure out what recipes were the most searched for in each state. Since the result would be "turkey" or some turkey-based dish if they used the pure search numbers, Google's researchers looked for the most popular and distinct side dishes to go along with the typical culinary centerpiece.
As you'd expect, the favored dishes varied by region or state, with dishes like frog eye salad leaping to the top in the western states of Nevada, Idaho, Wyoming and Colorado and Sopapilla Cheesecake in Texas and Oklahoma.
Some of the more interesting dishes included Ohio's Dirt Pudding, which is chocolate pudding with pulverized Oreos that look like dirt and topped with gummy worms; Utah's cheesy Funeral Potatoes; and North Carolina's Pig Pickin Cake, a cake that sadly doesn't have any bacon in it, instead opting for mandarin oranges and pineapple.
And, finally, Minnesota gets a recipe that fits tradition. As a Minnesotan for the past eight years, I can attest that wild-rice casserole (or "hot dish," as Minnesotans call it) is the dish most Minnesotans serve with the Thanksgiving meal, not whatever the hell a Grape Salad is, thank you very much.
Check out recipes and additional by-state search results in The New York Times' interactive graphic The Thanksgiving Recipes Googled in Every State. And then get into the kitchen. Those snicker salads aren't going to make themselves.
