Regional Thanksgiving Foods in the U.S..

Howdy, it's Kyle talking about regional dishes for U.S. Thanksgiving. At this time of year, millions of Americans gather with family and friends to have a big feast, but the food we eat isn't always the same depending on the part of the country in which you live. I've been fortunate enough to have Thanksgiving dinners in California, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia, and the things we've had at each one have been a little bit different. So in this video, I'm going to go over some of the regional differences in side dishes and desserts you might find throughout the U.S. This time of year, you'll often see websites or maps showing stuff like this where it's talking about the number one side dish or most requested food for each state for Thanksgiving. But the problem with maps like this is that the sources are often kind of dubious. So some of them use bettycrocker.com or they just ask a bunch of chefs or go by whatever the most googled food term is during Thanksgiving, but that doesn't really give you the best overall impression of what you're going to see in different parts of the country in terms of sides and desserts. And these maps are always by state, so there always has to be something for each state, even if there isn't really anything iconic in terms of Thanksgiving dish for that state. So in this video, I'm going to be looking more at regional type dishes because most things are more regional as opposed to by state. There are a few things that are specific to a state, but I'm going to be going more by regional type dishes here. I'm going to start off by talking about the southeast because that's where I've spent the vast majority of my Thanksgivings as an adult. One thing that is very ubiquitous in southeastern Thanksgiving is macaroni and cheese. You'll see mac and cheese for Thanksgiving in other parts of the U.S., but for the southeast, it's mandatory. Whether it's been Carolina, Tennessee, or West Virginia, every single Thanksgiving has had mac and cheese. And if you're from the west, you might be thinking, what, you get a sippy cup with your mac and cheese? That's kind of how I thought as well before I moved to South Carolina. I mean, being from the west, I thought of mac and cheese as being that stuff that comes in a blue box. But since then, I've learned it can be really good baked into a casserole and is one of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving. Something else very common throughout the southeast is anything made with sweet potatoes. With North Carolina being the number one producer of sweet potatoes in the U.S., you can expect to find a lot of sweet potato type dishes in the southeast. You'll often see it baked into a casserole, often with marshmallows on top, or it can also be a nice dessert baked into a pie. And you'll find sweet potatoes on the dinner plate all throughout the U.S., but it is most common and most prevalent in the southeast. Another staple for the southeast is anything with pecans. So whether they're sprinkled on top of a casserole, baked into a pie, or glazed into pralines, you'll often find pecans at a southern Thanksgiving. It's also worth noting that it's pronounced pecans when talking about just the nuts, but if you're talking about a pie, it's a pecan pie. Also found at most southern Thanksgivings are greens, which is a general term for collard, mustard, or turnip greens. And if you've been in the house when they're cooking the greens, wow, they stink. And they can be pretty off-putting to a lot of people because the flavor is often quite strong. But to make it more palatable, most people will cook the greens in either lard or butter and have ham hocks in the pot as well. And that takes away some of the healthy aspects of the greens, but it does make them much tastier. Common in the western portions of the southeast, primarily Louisiana, is something called carrot souffle. And these are carrots baked with egg whites and topped with various sweeteners. When you get to the western end of the south, like Arkansas and Texas, you'll often see turkey cooked in a spaghetti. And even in these days, turkey spaghetti is not more popular than this regular old turkey, but these are the places in the U.S. where you might find turkey spaghetti. Another southern regional dessert is called Kentucky Derby Pie. And as you might expect, it is most common in Kentucky, but you can't find it in other parts of the southeast. And this is a chocolate chip cookie pie with nuts, usually walnuts, and it's served warm. Another popular Thanksgiving dessert in the south is peach dump cake. Personally, I hate peaches. They're one of my least favorite foods out there, but peach desserts are pretty common throughout the south on Thanksgiving. So whether it's peach pie, peach cobbler, or peach dump cake, you'll find them often in the southeast. Now let's take a look at the northeastern part of the country. Kind of like macaroni and cheese, cranberry sauce is very common all throughout the U.S. for Thanksgiving, but it is most prevalent in New England. I've seen cranberry sauce occasionally in southern Thanksgiving, but it's going to be something much more common, if not mandatory, in New England. Also in the northeast in general, you'll find more dishes made with butternut squash. It's often made into a soup or a casserole, and it's pretty common up in New England in the northeast. And I know it's stuff that's eaten in other parts of the country as well, but I've never had butternut squash for any Thanksgiving, whether it be California or the southeast. An iconic Thanksgiving dessert for the northeast is called Indian Pudding. And this is cornmeal, milk, and molasses made into a pudding, often topped with cinnamon, and served warm. Indian pudding is more common in New England, but in the mid-Atlantic states you'll often find shoofly pie. This is another really sweet pie made with molasses, and it's most commonly found in Pennsylvania. Another signature dessert for the northeast is Concord Grape Pie. I've only ever had Concord Grape made into jelly, so I don't know what the pie tastes like, but I'm sure it's pretty good. It's not a very common pie type to find in the west or in the southeast, but it is much more common in the northeast. Now let's move over to the midwest. Whether it be the Great Lakes or the Plains, big hearty casserole dishes are much more common there, and these are often puffy with puff pastry or they're fluffy with marshmallow on top. In the upper midwest, especially Minnesota and Wisconsin, you'll often find wild rice casseroles, or in Minnesota they're called a hot dish. With that part of the country being the largest producer of wild rice, you will see wild rice casserole much more often up there. Also big for Wisconsin as an appetizer or a side dish is beer cheese dip. I doubt there could be anything more Wisconsin than beer cheese dip. It's usually served with pretzels and they can be the hard kind or the soft kind. In Minnesota and the Dakotas, especially North Dakota, you'll often see Scandinavian inspired dishes for Thanksgiving. One is lefse, which is a Norwegian flatbread. It's almost like a potato pancake. It's fairly thin and it's usually topped with cinnamon and sugar. My mother-in-law is of Norwegian descent and she'll usually make lefse for Thanksgiving. It's quite good and something you're not really going to find outside of Minnesota or the Dakotas. However, the dark side of Scandinavian influenced dishes is lutefisk. And this is fish that is aged and dried and then rehydrated and gelatinized. According to some folks I know from Minnesota, lutefisk is something that grandma will show up with at Thanksgiving but nobody really eats it. Maybe a couple of little kids will try it or somebody visiting from out of state and everyone will laugh at them after they try it and find out how disgusting it is. Like I was saying before about New England being the part of the country where you're most likely to see cranberry sauce, that is true except for one state, Wisconsin. Wisconsin is the number one producer of cranberries in the country and there are a lot of dishes made with it throughout the state for Thanksgiving. In the entire Midwest you're going to find corn incorporated into the dishes more than most other parts of the country. Whether it be straight corn, creamed corn, or corn casserole, expect corn to be on the plate for Thanksgiving in the Midwest. Now let's head on over to the northwestern part of the country. One of my favorite desserts in general not just for Thanksgiving or from the northwest is huckleberry pie which is pretty commonly found in Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. I'm not sure why huckleberries aren't more well known throughout the U.S. because all the other major berries are found throughout the country even though they don't really grow them throughout the country. I'm kind of like how you have beer cheese dip in Wisconsin, well in the northwest you often have smoked salmon dip. Personally I think that salmon is my least favorite fish and I probably wouldn't like smoked salmon dip but it is very popular and quite common throughout Alaska, Washington, and Oregon. Heading just south of there we'll go into Utah. One of the most popular side dishes there is called funeral potatoes and this is a cheesy hash brown casserole with a crunchy topping often it's corn flakes. This is something that my mom makes in California but it's much more common to find in Utah and other areas with a large LDS population. And heading into the southwest you'll see many more dishes influenced by Mexican culture. A common Thanksgiving dish in California and Arizona and to a lesser extent New Mexico and Texas are tamales and this is a meat stuffed into cornmeal rolled up into a corn husk and they're very labor-intensive which is why you'll often find them for Thanksgiving and Christmas because it just takes so much effort to do it's almost like an assembly line of people putting them together. And even though Thanksgiving tamales are much more common in the southwest I guarantee you where you live you can go to a Mexican restaurant a couple of weeks before and order a dozen or two tamales for Thanksgiving. And also in this part of the country you'll often find tortillas as a side dish. They can be flour or blue corn but either way they're often served with dinner. And in New Mexico you'll find red chili sauce and green chilies incorporated into the meal. People from New Mexico will put green chilies into just about everything so whether it be the stuffing or a casserole it's going to be pretty spicy. You can't escape the heat for dinner in New Mexico even for Thanksgiving. And now I want to talk specifically about variations of stuffing or dressing throughout the country and depending on the part of the country you live in it's either called stuffing or dressing. It's usually called dressing in the west and stuffing in the east. But the base of the stuffing is what varies regionally throughout the U.S. In the eastern half of the U.S. most stuffing is going to be cornbread stuffing. I've had cornbread stuffing in every Thanksgiving I've been to in the southeast and it's usually my favorite dish of the meal. In the west much more common is white bread stuffing and it's essentially the same thing it's just made with white bread instead of cornbread. And growing up in California this is my part of the Thanksgiving dinner as well. Specific to northern California you'll often find sourdough bread dressing. I've never had it but based on my appreciation of other stuffings I'm sure it'll probably be my favorite dish for Thanksgiving in San Francisco as well. And kind of like how wild rice is most common in the upper midwest you'll often find wild rice stuffing up there as well. And I've never had this either but I'm pretty sure I'd like it. So those are the main Thanksgiving side dishes and desserts I wanted to go over in this video. There's certainly many more that I wasn't able to cover in this video so please let me know in the comment section if there are other type desserts or sides that you have where you live that aren't really common in other parts of the country. Or maybe a strange variant of one of the dishes I discussed in this video. But the overall theme for this video is that no matter where you go in the U.S. you're probably going to get something good to eat for Thanksgiving. So that's my look at Thanksgiving sides and desserts that you might find throughout different regions in the country. And depending on when you're watching this video I hope you either have or had a nice Thanksgiving that you're able to enjoy with family and friends. I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did please give me a thumbs up so let me know you approve. And subscribe to this channel if you're interested in learning more about U.S. geography. I'm talking about cities and counties and states and ranking them and comparing them in all kinds of different categories. Talking about cross-country road tripping and everything I do comes from a little more nerdy type perspective. But yeah thanks for watching. Geography King signing out.