Turkey may be the main course in most American Thanksgiving dishes, but it's the sides that liven up the table. However, depending on where you live, the holiday menus can look very different. Career advice site Zippia analyzed Google search to find the most popular supplement in each of the 50 states. At the end there was a buffet with mostly traditional - but some surprising - options.
The most popular choice? Mashed potatoes that led the search on 10 states (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Washington, and Wisconsin). And many other carbonated, starchy offerings also got high results. Six states (Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia) and the District of Columbia looked for macaroni and cheese more than any other Thanksgiving site, with all of these states in one big block along the east coast. Let's call it the Mac-n-Cheese line.
But the funniest part of such a list is always the outliers. Apparently, Maine serves up the kind of Thanksgiving dinner your dietitian would approve, since "side salad" was the most popular search there. Indiana cracks devilish eggs and Alaska chooses a hash brown casserole.
Most of the rest of the list is pretty normal as it is based on popular searches rather than searches that are specific to one state. Hawaii doesn't pick pineapples, and New Mexico's famous red and green chilies don't show up either.
"Sorry if your family has an unusual tradition of prawn cocktails, red lobster cheddar biscuits, or whatever weird turkey day weird tradition," the poll said. "Your family is weird and didn't fall into our data."
The website analyzed Google Trends for November 2019 so the data is based on last year's Thanksgiving menus. Zippia examined data for 20 classic choices that the more unusual menu options didn't make the cut.
See the map above for a full menu of status choices.
