Last Call: What Is Your State Grilling This Weekend?
Where would we be without Google Trends? Sure, a faceless company compiling our personal search data into pretty charts and graphs that anyone can access at any time might seem creepy if you think about it for too many seconds, but just look at the many valuable insights you can gain about what people are grilling over Memorial Day Weekend!
Of course, this doesn't prove much about what people are grilling this weekend, as grocery sales data might. It's based on the most "uniquely searched" item in each state, or the query that users had in that state more than anywhere else. That methodology likely explains why some popular cookout foods like burgers aren't heavily featured on the list, since users nationwide are searching for burger recipes in equal measure—except, apparently for the crazed hamburger zealots in Georgia. Also, as you can see above, some states matched each other's outsized affinity for certain items; see Nevada, Mississippi, and Hawaii's shared love of grilled lobster tail.
As for the prominence of grilled fruits and vegetables on this list, I don't believe that's a sign that fewer people are grilling any meat this Memorial Day weekend. But it probably does signal an increased desire to cater to non-meat eaters along with the carnivores, which would be a beautiful thing. Or it could just be that more people are finally discovering that grilled pineapple is delicious. Either way, exciting times.
Does your state's top-grilled item track for you? I, for one, knew that mushrooms were having a moment, but I wouldn't have expected Illinois to be a leader in grilling portobellos. I'm down with that. Sounds tasty.
If you need further grilling inspiration this weekend, try some of our recipes that aren't accounted for in the searches above. No state, it seems, has awoken to the delights of smoky grilled cocktails, or a whole dang head of cauliflower. Nor, of course, Watermelon Burgers with Goat Cheese and Charred Orange-Fennel Gremolata, but I guess that's a lot to type into Google. Happy grilling!