Too much zucchini seems to be a common problem
June 3, 2019 12:26 AM Subscribe
Check out the most beloved warm-weather dishes across the country! Food Network lists (with recipe links!) the top summer recipe in every state. Well, the top searched recipe in every state, anyway.
Apart from going the VPN route, there really is no way to access foodnetwork.com from Europe, is there?
posted by soundofsuburbia at 1:08 AM on June 3, 2019
posted by soundofsuburbia at 1:08 AM on June 3, 2019
Unfortunately, the Food Network is very stubbornly persistent with its annoying, ill-conceived geolocation redirects for non-US viewers, so if anyone else is like me and interested in the list but cannot view it, you can check out a clunky, unstyled google cache version. Unfortunately, if you then want to follow a link to any recipe, again you'll have to resort to a cache. To do that, copy the url of the linked recipe, paste it into your browser's address bar (or the google search bar) inside quotation marks. In the google results that come up, access the cached version by clicking the little upside down triangle and choosing "cached." (Or use Tor, obvs, but it takes a little setting-up)
Anyway, I can vouch for a few of these recipes, but Tennessee's summer search fave of Tomato Pie (cache here) is insanely good as a guilty pleasure in my house at least once per season when the best tomatoes are available. <3
posted by taz at 1:20 AM on June 3, 2019 [14 favorites]
Anyway, I can vouch for a few of these recipes, but Tennessee's summer search fave of Tomato Pie (cache here) is insanely good as a guilty pleasure in my house at least once per season when the best tomatoes are available. <3
posted by taz at 1:20 AM on June 3, 2019 [14 favorites]
Above access info is based on a desktop/laptop, btw; apologies if it's different in mobile version!
posted by taz at 1:22 AM on June 3, 2019
posted by taz at 1:22 AM on June 3, 2019
Oh, damn! Sorry, non-US Mefites! I had no idea Food Network was shitty. Thanks for the work-around, Taz!
posted by Weeping_angel at 1:34 AM on June 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by Weeping_angel at 1:34 AM on June 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
New York... lobster rolls? Isn't that more of a New England thing? I've never seen them in any restaurant in New York State. Massachusetts, sure. New York, not so much.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:59 AM on June 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:59 AM on June 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
Also, I had never heard of low country boil until today, but I heard it mentioned on TV twice today, and then it's on this list, too.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 3:04 AM on June 3, 2019
posted by The Underpants Monster at 3:04 AM on June 3, 2019
It seems like the actual most beloved recipes would be things people living in these states would be more likely to already know how to make. This feels more like, "the recipes you don't really make much that occur to you in summer and then you make them and forget about them until next year".
posted by tocts at 4:21 AM on June 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by tocts at 4:21 AM on June 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
I'm pretty sure the actual statistic they're using is...there's probably a more succinct way to put this, but the item in the category where that state shows the greatest upward deviation from the national average. So, for example, I seriously doubt Arkansans search for porchetta recipes more often than barbecued ribs; rather, for some reason their propensity for porchetta recipes versus residents in other states is their biggest summer-recipe statistical anomaly. I really hate it when the later type of statistic is presented as the former.
posted by drlith at 4:51 AM on June 3, 2019 [8 favorites]
posted by drlith at 4:51 AM on June 3, 2019 [8 favorites]
New York... lobster rolls? Isn't that more of a New England thing? I've never seen them in any restaurant in New York State. Massachusetts, sure. New York, not so much.
Yeah, part of me expects to see it on the menu somewhere on the lower east side, but when you order one, it's inexplicably made with tomatoes and tastes like Hitler's earwax.
No I have not forgotten the clam chowder debacle, thankyouverymuch
posted by Mayor West at 4:56 AM on June 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
Yeah, part of me expects to see it on the menu somewhere on the lower east side, but when you order one, it's inexplicably made with tomatoes and tastes like Hitler's earwax.
No I have not forgotten the clam chowder debacle, thankyouverymuch
posted by Mayor West at 4:56 AM on June 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
Jasper White’s Summer Shack Lobster Roll recipe is sublime.
posted by valkane at 5:01 AM on June 3, 2019
posted by valkane at 5:01 AM on June 3, 2019
Thinks: Indiana will be that damned grilled corn on the cob from the state fair that almost no one actually makes at home.
Looks: *sigh*
posted by Thorzdad at 5:14 AM on June 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
Looks: *sigh*
posted by Thorzdad at 5:14 AM on June 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
Let me get this straight. It's oppressively hot and I am expected to make special meals?
posted by thelonius at 5:30 AM on June 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 5:30 AM on June 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
I'm pretty sure the actual statistic they're using is...there's probably a more succinct way to put this, but the item in the category where that state shows the greatest upward deviation from the national average. So, for example, I seriously doubt Arkansans search for porchetta recipes more often than barbecued ribs; rather, for some reason their propensity for porchetta recipes versus residents in other states is their biggest summer-recipe statistical anomaly. I really hate it when the later type of statistic is presented as the former.
Yes. Minnesota's recipe is a cucumber-dill-sour cream salad which looks perfectly nice, actually, but I've lived in Minnesota since 1992 and have many friends whose families have been here for generations and I've never heard of such a thing.
We have the same kinds of summer dishes as most upper midwesterners do - German and non-German potato salads, cobblers and crumbles, various corn dishes, zucchini bread, etc.
This year, there are not one but two - two! - new Mexican ice cream places with fancy paletas that have opened within basically walking distance from my house, and my summer ambition is to try all the flavors.
posted by Frowner at 5:45 AM on June 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
Yes. Minnesota's recipe is a cucumber-dill-sour cream salad which looks perfectly nice, actually, but I've lived in Minnesota since 1992 and have many friends whose families have been here for generations and I've never heard of such a thing.
We have the same kinds of summer dishes as most upper midwesterners do - German and non-German potato salads, cobblers and crumbles, various corn dishes, zucchini bread, etc.
This year, there are not one but two - two! - new Mexican ice cream places with fancy paletas that have opened within basically walking distance from my house, and my summer ambition is to try all the flavors.
posted by Frowner at 5:45 AM on June 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
Similarly, allegedly a lot of people in North Carolina need to know how to make fried green tomatoes. Which isn’t a North Carolina dish.
(And tangentially, I wish desli.de handled Food Network’s website. I feel sorry for the people who have to page through 50 slides plus advertising to see whether they mischaracterized Wyoming.)
posted by ardgedee at 5:49 AM on June 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
(And tangentially, I wish desli.de handled Food Network’s website. I feel sorry for the people who have to page through 50 slides plus advertising to see whether they mischaracterized Wyoming.)
posted by ardgedee at 5:49 AM on June 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
In a way, this type of article reminds me of the "invention of tradition" in Europe during the 19th century - for instance, a lot of "regional dress" in Denmark didn't really exist or was not formalized until a narrative about big regional differences arose. I mean, people wore Danish folk clothes, but not in the "whoops, we're in a new province now, the outfits are very different and everyone wears them" way. I have not studied this much, but I assume that it had to do with nation-building and the start of more mass tourism.
So we get all these articles that misleadingly imply that if you go to Minnesota, everyone is super into cucumber dill sour cream salad and that this is somehow characteristic of Minnesota - that is that Minnesota is markedly, "brandedly" different from other places.
This is happening as capital actually homogenizes places at a rapid rate - as I say, I moved here in 1992 and a lot of the stuff that distinguished Minneapolis-St Paul from any other city is gone. You can live in the same kinds of shitty loft apartments and eat in the same kinds of blank, identikit fashionable restaurants as in Chicago or any other city with at least some pretense to regional banking and tech money. Venice becomes like Blackpool, leaving nothing for anybody.....
posted by Frowner at 5:54 AM on June 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
So we get all these articles that misleadingly imply that if you go to Minnesota, everyone is super into cucumber dill sour cream salad and that this is somehow characteristic of Minnesota - that is that Minnesota is markedly, "brandedly" different from other places.
This is happening as capital actually homogenizes places at a rapid rate - as I say, I moved here in 1992 and a lot of the stuff that distinguished Minneapolis-St Paul from any other city is gone. You can live in the same kinds of shitty loft apartments and eat in the same kinds of blank, identikit fashionable restaurants as in Chicago or any other city with at least some pretense to regional banking and tech money. Venice becomes like Blackpool, leaving nothing for anybody.....
posted by Frowner at 5:54 AM on June 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
I can attest that Iowa's entry - chocolate-zucchini cake - is most definitely a thing here, especially at church/little league/etc potlucks. Pretty sure it appears in most of those fundraiser recipe collections everyone's mom has three of. It's damn good, too.
posted by Caxton1476 at 6:13 AM on June 3, 2019
posted by Caxton1476 at 6:13 AM on June 3, 2019
I currently have a subscription to Food Network Magazine, thanks to my mother getting it at a very cheap discount due to filling out surveys on the Internet or something like that. Anyway, they are constantly doing these goofy state-based lists of foods - and they are always funny.
On the other hand, I can not deny that my wife and I make a lot of peach cobbler in the late summer. But we got the recipe from Smitten Kitchen, who lives in New York City, and our peaches almost always come from an orchard in Pennsylvania, because they offer great bulk seconds prices at our Farmers' Market. So I am skeptical as to just how authentically Maryland it all is.
posted by timdiggerm at 6:19 AM on June 3, 2019
On the other hand, I can not deny that my wife and I make a lot of peach cobbler in the late summer. But we got the recipe from Smitten Kitchen, who lives in New York City, and our peaches almost always come from an orchard in Pennsylvania, because they offer great bulk seconds prices at our Farmers' Market. So I am skeptical as to just how authentically Maryland it all is.
posted by timdiggerm at 6:19 AM on June 3, 2019
A kansasan did not fry the okra in that picture. why the f@@@ is it so dainty and cute?
And yes no bake cookies are a big thing in oklahoma. Not really just in summer though. at least it isn't a zucchini boat.
posted by domino at 6:21 AM on June 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
And yes no bake cookies are a big thing in oklahoma. Not really just in summer though. at least it isn't a zucchini boat.
posted by domino at 6:21 AM on June 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
Fuck macaroni salad. I swear to god that as my [Alabama] parents are aging, and it isn’t like they are losing their ability to cook and eat real food so ignore the ableism part of this, it seems like the only thing they are interested in ‘cooking’ is some bullshit canned goods plus mayonnaise dish that ends in -salad.
In order of increasing wtf:
Potato salad*
Egg salad*
Ham salad
Macaroni salad
Tuna salad
Probably a few I forgot
Corn salad
SPAM salad (I shit you not, there is perhaps not a more disgusting/processed dish alive than this monstrosity of abominations)
Forgive me and my mild rage on this subject, the old saying that you can never go home again is so true for me, for many reasons, and it sucks.
*These get a complete pass, I legit grew up with these and my family made them great.
posted by RolandOfEld at 6:46 AM on June 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
In order of increasing wtf:
Potato salad*
Egg salad*
Ham salad
Macaroni salad
Tuna salad
Probably a few I forgot
Corn salad
SPAM salad (I shit you not, there is perhaps not a more disgusting/processed dish alive than this monstrosity of abominations)
Forgive me and my mild rage on this subject, the old saying that you can never go home again is so true for me, for many reasons, and it sucks.
*These get a complete pass, I legit grew up with these and my family made them great.
posted by RolandOfEld at 6:46 AM on June 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
The New York lobster rolls thing may also be skewed by New York City having like six places that do artisinal single-origin or whatthehellever versions of lobster rolls, as well.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:59 AM on June 3, 2019
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:59 AM on June 3, 2019
I heart that the Delaware recipe is "Burgers".
Gee, Delaware, what do you want to eat tonight?
The same thing we eat every night, Pinky. Whatever.
posted by team lowkey at 10:04 AM on June 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
Gee, Delaware, what do you want to eat tonight?
The same thing we eat every night, Pinky. Whatever.
posted by team lowkey at 10:04 AM on June 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
i want to see a listicle showing the divide between which states are familiar with waking up to bags and bags of zucchini left by late night zucchini bandits and which states have no idea this is a thing.
posted by poffin boffin at 12:12 PM on June 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 12:12 PM on June 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
Delaware makes some sense since "burgers" are the Joe Biden of cookout foods. I was initially upset that Florida got Guacamole while California got Basil Pesto dip, but I realized that every supermarket chain out here has half-way decent fresh guac and tossing in some of your favorite salsa is nothing anyone's going to Google for. But anything associated with FoodNetwork WITHOUT Alton Brown is not worth much.
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:38 PM on June 3, 2019
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:38 PM on June 3, 2019
a lot of the stuff that distinguished Minneapolis-St Paul from any other city is gone.
On the other hand I think there are things that are genuinely local and have sticking power. I not only grew up in Minnesota but went to college there, and didn't think it was unusual or significant that the dorm cafeteria often had wild rice stuff just because that was the normal I'd grew up with. But in retrospect it was distinctive, and the cultural role of wild rice to that area (not necessarily stopping at the state border though of course) goes way back to precolonial times.
Also for Iowa, as an outsider I'll say what I found most distinctive there has been corny mac. Never heard of that before, but it seems every Iowan is very familiar with it.
posted by traveler_ at 2:08 PM on June 3, 2019
On the other hand I think there are things that are genuinely local and have sticking power. I not only grew up in Minnesota but went to college there, and didn't think it was unusual or significant that the dorm cafeteria often had wild rice stuff just because that was the normal I'd grew up with. But in retrospect it was distinctive, and the cultural role of wild rice to that area (not necessarily stopping at the state border though of course) goes way back to precolonial times.
Also for Iowa, as an outsider I'll say what I found most distinctive there has been corny mac. Never heard of that before, but it seems every Iowan is very familiar with it.
posted by traveler_ at 2:08 PM on June 3, 2019
What I learned is that it's a good thing Americans have Google or they would not know how to make: grilled hamburger, grilled corn on the cob, guacamole, etc?
posted by xammerboy at 4:58 PM on June 3, 2019
posted by xammerboy at 4:58 PM on June 3, 2019
Chicken Salad!?! Chicken salad has a recipe? That people bother looking up? In DC?
I'm annoyed that I clicked the clickbait. Gonna spend the rest of the evening writing a script to google some improbable concoction like Myanmar Étouffée. Scratch that I'm gonna try to make Myanmar Étouffée 'cause that actually sounds pretty damn good.
Fuck you very much Food Network.
posted by aspersioncast at 5:17 PM on June 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
I'm annoyed that I clicked the clickbait. Gonna spend the rest of the evening writing a script to google some improbable concoction like Myanmar Étouffée. Scratch that I'm gonna try to make Myanmar Étouffée 'cause that actually sounds pretty damn good.
Fuck you very much Food Network.
posted by aspersioncast at 5:17 PM on June 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
that ends in -salad.
The idea that you can make something be a 'salad' by adding mayonnaise is part of American food culture that both delights and horrifies me.
Let me get this straight. It's oppressively hot and I am expected to make special meals?
I look forward to the special meals for oppressively hot days. They generally involve chucking some yummy cold stuff on a plate and eating in the yard. If I'm being really fancy, I might turn the stove on for larb.
I can't just eat a plate of salami in winter and call it a meal, but when Summer comes around, all bets are off.
posted by pompomtom at 8:38 PM on June 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
The idea that you can make something be a 'salad' by adding mayonnaise is part of American food culture that both delights and horrifies me.
Let me get this straight. It's oppressively hot and I am expected to make special meals?
I look forward to the special meals for oppressively hot days. They generally involve chucking some yummy cold stuff on a plate and eating in the yard. If I'm being really fancy, I might turn the stove on for larb.
I can't just eat a plate of salami in winter and call it a meal, but when Summer comes around, all bets are off.
posted by pompomtom at 8:38 PM on June 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
I have just made the tomato pie and can confirm that it is delicious. In hindsight, I would have chopped the onions smaller but that’s just because I don’t like biting through a big ol’ ring of onion.
posted by Weeping_angel at 3:12 PM on June 4, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Weeping_angel at 3:12 PM on June 4, 2019 [1 favorite]
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posted by Weeping_angel at 12:29 AM on June 3, 2019 [2 favorites]