Great bit of mapping of information in the New York Times Times morning setting out regional Thanksgiving dinner preferences based on search engine results:
It is hard to draw very many conclusions based on search trends. The fact that cooks in the Southeast rarely look up crust recipes could mean that they are not interested in pies or that they bake so many that no one needs to be told how to do it. And what of all the searches for “cheese ball” in the Midwest? Do people in Indiana just forget how to make it each year, or are cheese balls winning new converts? We may never know why cooks in North Carolina show more interest in sweet potatoes, their most-queried side dish, than people in any other state. Or why a broccoli casserole belt extends through Appalachia and ends in Florida.
I have been interested in how regional and even local US food is for years. New York white hots, Maine Indian pudding, Indiana chicken noodle. All comfort and all about the neighbourhood. We’d never do this in Canada. The other day at work I was mentioning how I was over in upstate and picked up Vermont and Wisconsin cheddars, how different they were. One scoffed response was “well, I’m sticking to Canadian.” Doesn’t matter who produces it, what it tastes like, where it comes from – that person eats “Canadian” apparently.
It’s pretty funny how out national false superiority tells us tales. In a land of homogenized, standardized and nationalized food units, in a nation that researches how to make mild cheese more mild, we strangely assume that we are more diverse and interesting. The generic theory of national character that never fails to disappoint. It’s too bad as there are no doubt many local patterns in history, culture… food. But we’re not interested. There’d never be mapping of Canadian food patterns presented as a positive and interesting. It’d have to tell us again that there is beef in Alberta – never mind PEI’s fantastic “Easter beef” thing when you get to eat the cattle raised for prizes at the previous fall’s Royal Winter Fair or other blue ribbon winners. We are told that fish comes from the sea without consideration of the fried Lake Huron perch shacks or that smoked splake they make there, too. We’d never want to know where the hunter’s mystery pies are to be found.
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