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Meg Langford
I tend to write long form, and that is because I suffer from a condition called Logorrhea. It is not one of the disorders recognized by the APA as an actual psychiatric condition, but it is one of the go-to words learned by any kid taking the Scripps Spelling Bee seriously, so that’s good enough for me.
My condition--that of being perpetually logorrheic--is why it is odd for me to admit, that when it comes to the issue of States Naming Official State Things, I have precious little to say. Mr. Pickwick expounds upon the issue to make his larger point: Why the hell are we using this to be divisive, as a nation? As a once great people? I can’t think of anything to add to this that would not be an act of gilding the lily.
When I think about this business of States Naming Things, it is to me a kind of perfect Trifecta. (Redundant, I will grant you, as a Trifecta is, by definition, a kind of perfect choosing.) That said, to me, States Naming Things represents the perfect trifecta of Pride, Unity, and sheer Joy (read also whimsy, silliness, or liking a thing just because it’s so cool. Read “cool” as: beautiful, tasty, rare, delightful.)
And when it comes to States Naming Things, even when the process creates debate, the debate is endearing. Refreshing. However it all shakes down, it’ll all be OK. America will survive it.
I have always liked the idea of States Naming Things, and I was once again so enchanted with this idea that I got swept away in examples, and that is about the best I have.
Mississippi, known for generating racial controversy from time to time, really stepped up in the Naming Things arena, when they named as their Official State Toy the teddy bear. The reason is obvious and appropriate. Many of us know that the Teddy Bear was born when its likeness, Teddy Roosevelt couldn’t shoot a little bear cub, but how many know that happened in the Great State of Mississippi?
And leave it to one of our great Midwestern states, to be ambitious enough to have a whole big Official State Meal: Oklahoma designated an Official State Meal In 1988, consisting of fried okra, squash, cornbread, barbecue pork, biscuits, sausage and gravy, grits, corn, strawberries, chicken fried steak, pecan pie, and black-eyed peas.
The state of New York almost had a great moment, when they considered making the rescue dog their state dog. One wonders if New York realizes the ironic tragicomedy involved in their decision not to choose that dog, as their state dog, and instead choose something else? But at least there was an impulse, there, for a brief, shining moment.
The legislators in Albany, New York also had knock-down, drag-out time of it when a group of 4th graders, as part of a ‘tween civics project, tried to get yogurt named as New York’s official state snack. The verbal fracas was so heated it found its way onto a now infamous segment on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, along with Senior State Snack Correspondent, Jessica Williams. Your tax dollars at work.
There’s just no point in being a bad sport in this business of Naming State Things; that’s what’s so cool about it. It forces you to play nice. Pennsylvania Rep. Kelly Lewis, for example, has publicly denounced the whole business as “a total waste of time”. He thinks there are no grounds for wasting time picking a state dirt, and shuffles off from the idea of naming a state dance. But everybody who knows Lewis is aware of the fact that he only took that stance after his effort to make Hazelton the state soil failed hugely in a 177-22 vote. He has mud on his face. So much for pouting in the halls of the legislature.
And speaking of 4th graders, another group of them in the Great State of New Hampshire actually visited the halls of their legislature, to watch (they thought) their proposed bill become law: That the Red Tailed Hawk should become the Official Raptor for the Granite State. Wow! Not only did the legislature vote against it, as the poor little crushed schoolchildren looked on, but one representative (again, while the children were watching) swooped down on the children’s proposal, likening the raptor’s shredding of its prey to an abortion, using his time to attack planned parenthood. Again, wow. There must have been a heck of a lot of awkward conversations around dinner tables across New Hampshire that night.
And if I may wax serious for a moment, and reference Mr. Pickwick’s article about The Bible, there is a way to declare a state book that doesn’t involve hurting feelings, or getting everybody’s librarian bloomers in a bunch. Oregon did the cool thing: they threw the process out to the people—you can’t get any more democratic than that--and asked the populace to nominate titles. Not surprisingly, the good people of the Beaver State chose breathtakingly wonderful books that were either written by Oregonians, or set in that beautiful state, or both. See? This way, no matter who wins, everybody in Oregon wins. This criteria, once applied, however, would not work for Tennessee—as last time I heard, God does not live (exclusively) in Tennessee. Nor is Genesis set in Tennessee. Although I could be wrong. I expect a forum comment to suggest as much any minute now.
For a taste of good old fashioned Oregonian pride, and as a nudge to Tennessee, here is a list of fine books, excerpted from an article on the Oregon Public Broadcasting site: Ken Kesey is clearly the winner among our listeners. “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Sometimes a Great Notion” are fighting for the top honors on our Facebook page, Jaz Marie suggesting a third Kesey-related pick with Tom Wolfe’s “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.” The Happy Canyon Pageant in Pendleton chimed in with a lesser-known, but rodeo-focused Kesey pick, “Last Go Round.” Ursula LeGuin also received a lot of love, with “The Lathe of Heaven”, “The Wind’s 12 Quarters”, and “The Left Hand of Darkness” getting numerous mentions. Several listeners pushed for a relatively recent release in “Mink River” by Brian Doyle, including caller Lorraine from Oregon City. Geek Love” by Katherine Dunn got quite a few shout outs on our website. Doug called in to suggest H.L. Davis’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Honey in the Horn,” which was a popular suggestion among our listeners. Sue called from Portland to suggest “Winterkill” by Craig Lesley, and a number of listeners agreed with her. Oregon State Librarian MaryKay Dahlgreen added Lesley’s “Burning Fences” to the list. A few commenters suggested said, “Dune” by Frank Herbert, saying he went to high school in Oregon, and was inspired by the Oregon Dunes near Florence. Andrea Sargeant and several others said “The Jump-Off Creek” by Molly Gloss. We saw a few votes for “The River Why” and “The Brothers K” by David James Duncan. A couple of listeners gave the nod to “Ricochet River” by Robin Cody. Arras Heiress said “Trask” by Don Berry, which several others also mentioned. A couple of people suggested “The Clan of the Cave bear” by Jean Auel. Several commenters pointed out that Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita” was written in Oregon and was a worthy contender. (“Your Picks For Oregon's Official State Book by Dave Blanchard” by Dave Blanchard, OPB, March 27, 2015)
But back to the fun.
What is life without music? And by logical extension, what is a state without an Official State Song? Most states choose something traditional, predictable—something with the name of the state in the title. Ladies and Gentlemen, put your hands together, and give it up for the Buckeye State! Ohio, almost inexplicably, chose “Hang on Sloopy” for their Official State Song.
And while the fight isn’t over, talk about something that is hard to equivocate: nobody thinks of Kansas without thinking of “The Wizard of Oz”, and that’s why the powers that be are sensibly on their way to naming the Kairn Terrier as the Official State Dog. Again, see, non-partisan. (If someone is a Republican, is their dog, then, a Republican? Would a liberal’s dog vote Bernie by Proxy? All dogs are Libertarians, that’s what I think. Except for untrained dogs, who are clearly anarchists. And cats all being monarchists.)
Mr. Pickwick was quick to champion Oregon’s Official Microbe, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Brewer’s Yeast, but let’s not give short shrift to Wisconsin’s ongoing effort make Lactococcus Lactis their Official State Microbe. Touted as “not your average microbe”, (something I must admit I never pondered), the hardworking little bacterium used to make cheddar, Colby, and Monterey Jack cheese is an “unsung hero” of the nation’s Number 1 producing cheese state. Is this microbe lesser than the Brewer’s Yeast microbe? Don’t make me choose between my cheese and my beer.
Rhode Island, tiny but mighty, is so far the only state to be pushing through a state appetizer: calamari. One of my great weaknesses, especially the batter fried ones at Bonaroti’s in Vienna, Virginia.
In 2009, the Washington State Legislature was ready to name Aplets and Cotlets the Official State Candy, but not if the Almond Roca crowd had a say. Since no official candy is named on its site, I am guessing the matter got ugly, and was left unresolved.
The Mormon state has chosen “Jello” for its Official State Dessert.
The Official State Sport of Maryland is jousting.
And the Official State Sport of Colorado is—wait for it—Pack Burro racing. Nascar, watch out.
South Carolina actually has an actual Official State Craft Grass, as in, a sturdy kind of grass used to weave baskets, an art it proudly attributes to its slaves (not sure how I feel about that), who brought with them, in those slave ships, the knowledge of how to weave baskets so tight they would hold water. The slaves are free, but the art form continues—using the nation’s only Official Crafting Material, Craft Grass, aka Sweetgrass (Muhlenbergia filipes)
And New Mexico. You have to love New Mexico. Of all the fifty states et al in this glorious country of ours, New Mexico is the only one that has … wait for it …an Official State Question! This, from the website Mental Floss: New Mexico really got down to the symbolic nitty gritty when, in 1996, the legislature passed a House Joint Memorial declaring "Red or green?" as the official state question. The options refer to the red or green chilies native to New Mexican cuisine, and is the inquiry most often heard in local restaurants. Chiles are the state's top cash crop, and the adoption of the peculiar question acknowledges the pod's historical importance. Unsurprisingly, New Mexico is the only state to have such a designation. (Mental Floss, 13 Bizarrely Specific Official State Appetizers, Toys, Soils, and More.)
Massachusetts did not expect to create a global “Kerfluffle” when it decided to name “The Fluffernutter” sandwich as the Official State Sandwich.
And sometimes, the Proud and Joyful Unity (the Trifecta again) even trickles down to smaller provinces than the big ol’ states. I was ambivalent about Madison, Wisconsin until I found out that their Official Bird is the Plastic Pink Flamingo. Now, a visit to Madison is on my bucket list. Even as I make a mental note not to ever move there.
And what list would be complete without a nod towards all fifty state desserts? (Well, Mr. Pickwick’s I guess, since he didn’t get around to addressing the subject.) This list makes me proud to be an American. A fat American, I will grant you. But an American nonetheless. What the heck could be partisan about this list? For the record: only eight of our states have official state desserts. And may I ask, what the hell is up with that. But I offer this list through the creative stylings of L.Z. Anderson, in her playful Slate article, “The United Sweets of America”.
Alabama: Lane cake
Also known as Alabama Lane cake, Lane cake is one of those boozy, eggy, dried-fruit-filled confections we don’t eat enough of these days. Invented by Emma Rylander Lane in the 1890s, a Lane cake is a sponge cake layered with a raisin-bourbon filling and frosted with a marshmallow-y “boiled white frosting.” Lane cake is also to Harper Lee what the madeleine is to Marcel Proust: The baked good makes several appearances in the Alabama-set “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
Alaska: Baked Alaska
OK, fine, so the baked Alaska was not invented in Alaska. It wasn’t even invented by someone who had been to Alaska. Cakes topped with ice cream and encased with meringue were served for decades before Alaska became a state, under names like “omelette surprise” and “omelette à la norvégienne” (Norwegian omelette, probably an allusion to Norway’s cold climate). But it was the name popularized in the 1870s by Delmonico’s Restaurant in New York — a tribute to the newly purchased Department of Alaska — that stuck. It’s easy to see why the visually apt name caught on: The white, mounded dessert bears more than a passing resemblance to the snow-capped Mount McKinley.
Furthermore, Alaska is the only state name that describes a dessert not merely as a modifier, but as a noun. To omit this singular sweet from a list of pseudo-official state desserts would be a dereliction of my duties.
Arizona: Sopaipilla
Sopaipillas are similar to frybread — invented by Arizona’s original residents, the Navajo — which is to say that they’re deep-fried circles or squares of leavened dough. While frybread can be served with sweet or savory fillings, sopaipillas are more commonly served drizzled with honey as a dessert food. Some dessert experts see sopaipillas as more of a New Mexico thing, but it’s not fair for New Mexico to hog all of the American Southwest’s desserts.
Arkansas: Red velvet cake
Red velvet cake is having a moment, according to the New York Times, which insists that the scarlet-hued cake was invented at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York, “though some Southern cake historians believe that story is more legend than fact.” Whatever its true history, red velvet cake is firmly situated in the public imagination as a creation of the South: Who can forget the armadillo-shaped groom’s cake in Steel Magnolias? Granted, Steel Magnolias is technically set in Louisiana, but that’s not far from Arkansas (which doesn’t have any state dessert specialties to speak of). Plus, red velvet cake is colored cardinal and white — the official colors of the University of Arkansas.
California: Meyer lemon cake
Meyer lemons, a cross between lemons and oranges, grow easily in California’s temperate climate, so it’s no wonder Alice Waters’ crew at Chez Panisse seized on them when they were inventing California cuisine in the 1960s. Nowadays, elegant, not-too-sweet Meyer lemon cake is ubiquitous on West Coast restaurant menus.
Colorado: Pot candy
The legalization of recreational marijuana in Colorado at the beginning of this year opened the floodgates to a vigorous and controversial edibles industry. It was never any question that Colorado’s state dessert would be laced with THC — the question was, what kind of sweet edible should get the crown? Cookies? Brownies? Gummy bears?
Thankfully, Maureen Dowd recently settled matters in an instant-classic column describing a “caramel-chocolate flavored candy bar” that made her “convinced that I had died and no one was telling me.” If you’d like to make weed-laced caramel-chocolate bars at home in Dowd’s honor, here is one of many recipes available online.
Connecticut: Spice cookies
Connecticut is known as the Nutmeg State not because nutmeg grows there (it doesn’t), but because “its early inhabitants had the reputation of being so ingenious and shrewd that they were able to make and sell wooden nutmegs” — in other words, they were able to pass off fake nutmegs as real ones. It’s a bit of a convoluted origin story, and one that doesn’t speak well of the state’s integrity. But it does make a certain amount of sense: Connecticut’s earliest settlers were Dutch, and the Dutch are big on baking spices. Spice cookies aren’t quite as popular in Connecticut as they are in the Old World, but it’s hard to find fault with the soft, aromatic New England variety.
Delaware: Strawberry shortcake
Strawberries were declared the official state fruit of Delaware in 2010, and you can’t argue with House Bill No. 203 (“Whereas, strawberries are an important product of Delaware’s agricultural industry; and whereas children and adults love to pick their own strawberries; and whereas strawberries can be a refreshing part of everyone’s diet …”). Strawberry shortcake is indubitably the best strawberry dessert, so this one was easy.
Florida: Key lime pie
Key lime pie is the official state pie of Florida. There is an annual Key lime pie festival in Cape Canaveral. Florida media outlets specialize in lists of the best Key lime pies served in the state. And the limes in Key lime pie are named after the Florida Keys. This choice was easy as pie.
Georgia: Peach cobbler
The Georgia Peach Council might have the slickest website of any American agricultural association. Not only is the design eye-catching, with accents of aquamarine and, well, peach, but you can also win an iPad if you share your “Georgia Peach experiences.” Point being, Georgia peach growers know that peach is practically synonymous with Georgia, and they’re milking it for all its worth.
Georgia has its pick of peach desserts, so why did I assign it peach cobbler instead of the more obvious peach pie? The Georgia Peach Council offers two cobbler recipes but no pie recipes. Surprising, yes, but I’m not about to argue with professionals.
Hawaii: Shave ice
Does the phrase “shave ice” make your grammatically fastidious brain hurt? You clearly have never had real Hawaiian shave ice, which is so good it’s been known to cure pedantry. Made from large blocks of ice shaved into the finest flakes imaginable, drenched with whatever fruit-flavored syrup your heart desires, and sometimes drizzled with sweetened condensed milk, shave ice might be Hawaii’s most important contribution to American culture. Case in point: America’s first Hawaiian president almost always stops in for some when he’s back in his home state.
Idaho: Huckleberry pie
Did you think Idaho’s state dessert was going to be a potato cake? Come on, now. OK, fine, potato cake exists — but it’s hardly the regional treat huckleberry pie is.
If you’ve never eaten a huckleberry, it’s probably because agricultural scientists haven’t yet figured out how to domesticate them — they only grow in the wild. If you have eaten a huckleberry, you probably live in the vicinity of northern Idaho. Or you’re a black bear. Or both. Either way, you probably like the sweet-tart goodness of huckleberry pie.
Illinois: Brownies
Brownies made their debut at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, so I thought it was only fair to credit Chicago for one of the world’s favorite baked goods. After all, the original recipe, which contains a pound of chocolate and a pound of butter, is a good one.
Indiana: Sugar cream pie
According to the Indiana Foodways Alliance, “Indiana’s contribution to the nation’s pie mythology is sugar cream.” What is a sugar cream pie? The name is pretty literal: It’s a pie whose filling contains cream, flour, sugar, and vanilla — no eggs. It’s also sometimes called Hoosier sugar cream pie, just in case any other state wanted for some reason to take credit for it.
Iowa: Cherry pie
As a famous gourmand once said, “tastes so good, makes a grown man cry.” Every year at the annual fundraiser known as Veishea, Iowa State students sell thousands of cherry pies to raise money for the Veishea Cherry Pie Scholarship Fund. This bake sale tradition has been going on since 1920.
Kansas: Dirt cake
A chilled concoction of instant pudding, imitation whipped cream, and crushed chocolate sandwich cookies, Kansas dirt cake is the most prominent dessert named in honor of Kansas. (I promise, I looked for other ones, but this was it.) Kansas dirt cake is not to be confused with Mississippi mud pie, which is a totally different soil-themed dessert.
Kentucky: Bread pudding
The home of bourbon deserves a bourbon-flavored state dessert, and the very best bourbon-flavored dessert is bread pudding with bourbon sauce. Granted, a bunch of Southern states (notably Louisiana) lay claim to bread pudding, but given that none of those states would be able to make decent bread pudding without bourbon, I’m giving this one to Kentucky.
Louisiana: Bananas Foster
Louisiana has an unfair number of desserts it could plausibly assert ownership of. There’s king cake, which seems too Mardi Gras — specific to represent the Creole State year round. There’s bread pudding, which I gave to Kentucky on a bourbon-related technicality. There are beignets, which are usually eaten more for breakfast or a snack than for dessert.
Then there’s bananas Foster: invented in New Orleans, adequately boozy, easy to set on fire. Both festive enough for Louisiana’s pre-Lenten revelries and simple enough to make any other time of the year. Yes, bananas Foster will do quite nicely.
Maine: Blueberry pie
Maine is the country’s leading producer of lowbush or “wild” blueberries, which tend to be smaller, brighter, and more intensely flavored than the commercially viable highbush blueberries. Predictably, Mainers won’t shut up about their blueberries, and every Mainer you meet probably has a prized wild-blueberry pie recipe to sell you on. The Maine state Legislature’s designation of blueberry pie as the official state dessert in 2011 was a foregone conclusion.
Maryland: Smith Island cake
Smith Island is a tiny community of a few hundred people on the Chesapeake Bay. When they’re not catching soft-shell crabs, Smith Islanders spend their time making absurdly exacting cakes of six to 12 layers interspersed with chocolate icing. The Smith Island Baking Company, the only bakery on Smith Island, has proclaimed itself “the #1 Dessert Company in the World,” and assuming they’re judging on a scale of arduousness, I have to agree. Even though Smith Island cakes aren’t commonly made in the rest of Maryland, they became the official state dessert in 2008 — a testament to Smith Island’s PR power (and to the paucity of other Maryland dessert specialties).
Massachusetts: Boston cream pie
The Parker House Hotel alleges that its chef invented the Boston cream pie — a sponge cake layered with pastry cream and topped with a chocolate fondant — in 1856. History blogger Tori Avey takes issue with that origin story, explaining that “cream pie” was a common 19th-century term for round cakes layered with pastry cream, that the chocolate topping came into play later, and that people only started calling this dessert “Boston cream pie” because there was already a well-known dessert called “Boston cream cake,” which was in fact not a cake but a cream puff. (Got all that?) Regardless, the name stuck, Bostonians embraced it, and no less a distinguished Massachusetts family than the Kennedys championed the dessert as a symbol of the commonwealth. Sometimes, the myth is more important than the reality; this is one of those times.
Michigan: Fudge
Anyone with milk, butter, sugar, and chocolate can make fudge. But the residents of Mackinac Island, Michigan have taken fudge to another level, building an entire tourist industry around it and claiming to have “perfected” it. Michiganders aren’t the only ones who think this: In the history and recipe book “Oh Fudge! A Celebration of America’s Favorite Candy,” author Lee Edwards Benning calls Mackinac Island both “the fudge capital of the United States” and “the fudge capital of the world.” And when “the fudge king of Mackinac Island” died in 1996, he got an obituary in the New York Times, the ultimate endorsement of the importance of one’s life’s work.
Minnesota: Seven-layer bars
Page 4 of “You Know You’re in Minnesota When …” states “a potluck isn’t a potluck without bars.” The best bars for a potluck or any other occasion are seven-layer bars, so called because they contain butter, graham cracker crumbs, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, walnuts, shredded coconut, and sweetened condensed milk, in that order.
Mississippi: Mississippi mud pie
Mississippi mud pie is a relatively dignified affair compared to its thematic cousin, Kansas dirt cake. And it’s a relatively straightforward affair compared to Boston cream pie, in that it’s actually a pie, not a cake, and it contains one or more elements that resemble mud. Depending on the baker, Mississippi mud pie might contain a chocolate crumb crust or a traditional pie crust, which might be filled with chocolate pudding or chocolate cake or brownie batter, which might be topped with whipped cream or ice cream. Two things are certain: It will contain chocolate, and it will be just about the richest thing you ever tasted.
Missouri: Gooey butter cake
Gooey butter cake is a St. Louis curiosity that seems to defy description (despite the seemingly specific nature of its name). It falls somewhere between a sheet cake and a bar: It starts with a layer of thick, extra-buttery yellow cake (doctored from a cake mix box, usually), but the gooey part comes from a filling made of cream cheese, powdered sugar, and eggs. Like most great regional specialties, it comes with a host of contradictory origin stories, all of which place its birth somewhere in the 1930s or 1940s.
This map generally takes a skeptical eye toward breakfast food, but it will make an exception for gooey butter cake: Although many sources identify it as a snack or breakfast dish, I cannot condone eating such a sweet and rich course before sunset.
Montana: S’mores
The s’more was not invented in Montana, but hear me out: Montana is one of the best hiking destinations in the country. It’s home to Glacier National Park and part of Yellowstone; its name means “mountain,” for crying out loud. And anyone who plans a hike, camping trip, or other mountain-based recreational activity without bringing graham crackers, milk chocolate, and marshmallows is a fool. QED.
Nebraska: Popcorn balls
Nebraska is the country’s leading popcorn producer, growing about one-quarter of our national supply. According to legend, popcorn balls were invented during a day of wonky Nebraska weather: First heavy rains sent syrup flowing from sorghum grass into the cornfields, then extreme heat caused the corn to pop, and finally a tornado swept the sugar-coated popcorn into clusters. Climate change makes this story seem actually kind of plausible, but the folktale gives short shrift to whoever really invented candy-coated popcorn spheres, Nebraska’s homegrown contribution to the nation’s dessert menu.
Nevada: Chocolate fondue
The Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas is home to the world’s largest chocolate fondue fountain, which is reason enough to award melted chocolate dip to this state. But the extravagance of Las Vegas isn’t the only relevant factor here: The Silver State is the most mountainous state in the country, according to the National Park Service, and its superficial resemblance to the Swiss Alps lends a nice congruency to the pairing of Nevada with this alpine treat.
New Hampshire: Whoopie pie
New Hampshire, Maine, and Pennsylvania have all claimed ownership of the whoopie pie, which raises a question: Why haven’t any of these states come up with a less cringe-y name for it? (Some people call them “gobs.” Keep working on it!)
Whoopie pies are not pies: They’re chocolate cake disks sandwiched around vanilla frosting or marshmallow fluff. And while the Pennsylvania Amish and Mainers both have strong, proprietary feelings for whoopie pies, Yankee magazine has proclaimed that the best pies are made at a bakery in the Granite State.
New Jersey: Salt water taffy
Atlantic City, New Jersey, has made a number of lasting contributions to Americana: Monopoly, the Miss America pageant, that Bruce Springsteen song and, most importantly, those color-coded candy cylinders that, despite their name, contain no salt water.
New Mexico: Bizcochito
New Mexico became the first state to adopt a state cookie in 1989, when it made things official with this traditional anise-and-orange-scented sugar biscuit. The fact that New Mexico went out of its way to declare a state cookie before anyone else did speaks to a serious-mindedness that this map would be remiss not to respect.
New York: Cheesecake
New York state is much more than New York City — but New York City’s signature dessert has acquired such mythic proportions that it overshadows the rest of the state’s sweets. In fact, New York-style cheesecake, with its impossibly tall and dense layer of cream-cheese filling, has eclipsed all other styles of cheesecake to become America’s definitive cheesecake style.
“In a city of constant ethnic flux, cheesecake is itself a constant, offering something for everyone,” wrote a New York Times reporter in 2004, and the statement still rings true today. The Big Apple has seen its share of culinary fads, but ranking the best slices of cheesecake in the city remains an ever-popular pastime.
North Carolina: Sweet potato pie
Sweet potato pie is one of those pan-Southern desserts, a mainstay of soul food with roots in slave cooking. So why does North Carolina get it, instead of, say, Georgia, Virginia, or Mississippi? Tar Heels grow more sweet potatoes than residents of any other state, which gives them dibs on the tuber’s most illustrious dish.
North Dakota: Krumkake
I must confess that I’ve never been to North Dakota, but I’m nonetheless pretty confident about my choice of krumkake as this state’s dessert. Krumkake is not a crumbcake: It’s a thin, rolled up Norwegian cookie, somewhere between a pizzelle and a waffle cone. And it’s pronounced kroom-cacka.
Here’s why I feel it’s the right choice for North Dakota: The Roughrider State’s official tourism site includes two krumkake mentions on its list of “6 ways to experience ‘home for the holidays’ in North Dakota.” A blog post by one Kaitlin Ring of Williston called “Things North Dakotans Like” lists “krumkake as one North Dakotans’ favorite ethnic foods. (“Ethnic for us is German and Norwegian,” Ring explains.) But what sealed the deal for me was a recipe for krumkake northdakotakitchen.net, presented without comment, as though the reasons for its inclusion were obvious to any North Dakotan worth her salt.
Ohio: Buckeye candy
Buckeye candy is so called for its resemblance to the nut of the buckeye, the state tree of Ohio and nickname for its residents. Like a cross between peanut butter fudge and peanut butter cups, Buckeye candies consist of a ball of sweet peanut butter dough dipped in melted chocolate. Congratulations to Ohio for producing a confection that actually looks like the thing it’s supposed to look like, and that’s delicious to boot.
Oklahoma: Fried pie
“It was an abnormally cold winter in the year 1893.” So begins the rather dramatic origin story of Oklahoma’s oldest fried pie company. The tale continues, “The different ranchers in the Arbuckle Mountains had their ranch hands go out into the midst of the inclement weather to tend to the cattle …”
Long story short, the ranchers were miserable that winter until one resourceful woman started making them fried pies. That woman’s granddaughter, Nancy Fulton, is now known as “the Fried Pie Lady,” and she has turned her inherited knowledge of fried pies — fruit-filled turnovers, basically — into a miniature empire that’s extended its tentacles into Texas and Arkansas.
Oregon: Blackberry cobbler
Blackberries grow like weeds in the Pacific Northwest, and Oregon is the top producing state. Fresh blackberries are pretty good raw, but they’re even better cooked into a sweet, buttery batter — try this gorgeous recipe.
Pennsylvania: Banana split
Thanks in part to the sugar-loving Pennsylvania Dutch, the Keystone State lays claim to loads of desserts: apple dumplings, shoofly pie, whoopie pies, etc. But the United Sweets of America can choose only one, and it’s a classic of the dessert canon. In 1904, a young soda jerk named David “Doc” Strickler halved a banana lengthwise, nestled some scoops of ice cream in between the two halves, added some whipped cream and flavored syrups, and made history in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.
If this provenance weren’t enough, the chocolate sauce that’s a required topping on all banana splits provides a nice nod to one of Pennsylvania’s most famous brands.
Rhode Island: Frozen lemonade
Rhode Island was a tough one: It boasts two iconic sweet substances, coffee milk and frozen lemonade. After a lot of reflection, I decided coffee milk qualifies primarily as a beverage, not a dessert. (It’s literally just milk sweetened with coffee-flavored syrup.) Frozen lemonade also possesses beveragelike qualities, but at the moment it’s served, this tart, granita-like slushy is thick enough to eat with a spoon, which makes it a dessert in my book. The most famous purveyor of frozen lemonade in Rhode Island is Del’s, which has been cooling palates since 1948.
South Carolina: Coconut cake
Many bakers make coconut cakes, but only one baker has trademarked the phrase “Ultimate Coconut Cake.” The creation of pastry chef Claire Chapman, the pastry chef at the Peninsula Grill in Charleston, the Ultimate Coconut Cake® has been fêted by the likes of Martha Stewart and Bobby Stewart. New York Times tastemaker Florence Fabricant describes it thusly: “Coconut-infused butter cream is slathered between six layers of golden poundcake made with coconut milk in the batter. … In Charleston, some brides are ordering it as wedding cake.” The state that has taken coconut cake to its overelaborate zenith is the state that gets coconut cake as its official state dessert.
South Dakota: Kuchen
Like North Dakota, South Dakota has a fair amount of inhabitants of German and Scandinavian extraction. Kuchen just means cake in German, and in South Dakota it can refer to a number of different types of cake, but the type recognized as the official state dessert, according to the 2011 South Dakota Legislative Manual, is “a sweet dough crust filled with custard, which is served plain or studded with fruit, such as prunes, peaches, blueberries and apples.” To get a better sense of how kuchen is made, check out these pictures from last year’s Kuchen Festival in Delmont, South Dakota, or start making reservations for this year’s festival.
Tennessee: Banana pudding
Many states — perhaps all the states — wanted banana pudding as their state sweet. The layered concoction of sliced bananas, vanilla pudding, vanilla wafers, and whipped cream is an honest-to-God American treasure. And Tennessee is the state that has developed a festival worthy of banana pudding’s charms: The National Banana Pudding Festival and Cook-Off has been running for five years in Hickman County, Tennessee. In addition to naming “the best maker of banana pudding in the United States,” the festival crowns a Miss Banana Pudding, a ritual of retrograde sexism that is forgivable only because it’s done for the greater glory of banana pudding.
Texas: Pecan pie
The pecan tree is Texas’ official state tree, the native pecan is Texas’ official state nut, and San Saba is the self-proclaimed “pecan capital of the world.” Does it surprise you that the Texas House of Representatives recently named pecan pie the official state pie? It should not. Texas has covered all its bases where it comes to pecans, and to give this Thanksgiving dessert to any other state would just be wrongheaded. (It would also probably qualify as “messing with Texas.”)
Utah: Jell-O
Utah is the only state whose dessert is the same as its meat. (Come to think of it, Jell-O is one of the only desserts that is made out of meat.) There’s a reason the so-called “Mormon Corridor” is also known as the “Jell-O Belt” — Zell-O is the most potent symbol of Latter-day Saint culture and cuisine. (Literally the most potent — remember, Mormons don’t consume coffee, tea, or alcohol.)
Vermont: Maple candy
The Pieces of Vermont store, “Your Vermont maple candy and maple wedding favors specialists,” isn’t the only place you can buy maple candy — a magical confection that is made from pure, concentrated, whipped maple syrup — but it is the most aptly named.
Virginia: Chess pie
Chess pie (the name is possibly a corruption of “chest pie” or “cheese pie”) is filled with a custard containing eggs, butter, flour, sugar, and usually cornmeal. Chess pie is awarded to Virginia because the very first written recipe for such a pie, hiding under the alias “transparent pudding,” appeared in The Virginia House-wife in 1825.
Washington: Nanaimo bars
Yes, Nanaimo bars get their name from Nanaimo, British Columbia, and they are indubitably Canadian by birth. But it’s unsurprising that these sweets, which consist of a layer of graham cracker and nut crust, a layer of pudding or buttercream frosting, and a layer of chocolate, gained popularity south of the Canadian border as well. And it was Seattle-based behemoth Starbucks, which has sold Nanaimo bars seasonally, that introduced them to the rest of America.
Washington, D.C.: Cupcakes
The cupcake craze of the early 21st century did not begin in Washington, D.C., but it ended there. Our nation’s capital is home to several independent cupcake bakeries, including Georgetown Cupcake, which rose to prominence on the TLC reality show “D.C. Cupcakes” — the program that forever linked the District of Columbia with cupcakes in the nation’s imagination. No one tell D.C. that macarons, pie, whoopie pies, and doughnuts are the new cupcake.
West Virginia: Shoofly pie
Shoofly pie is a colorful name for molasses pie. It seems to have been invented, like so many other desserts, by the Pennsylvania Dutch, but molasses is a beloved ingredient throughout Appalachia, as evidenced by the West Virginia Molasses Festival, held annually in Arnoldsburg, West Virginia, since 1967.
Wisconsin: Kringle
What is a kringle, you ask? Why, just head over to kringle.com, which tells you everything you need to know: The home page bears several photographs of the ring-shaped, fruit-filled, streudel-like pastries and a large insignia reading “Official State Pastry of Wisconsin.” Wisconsinites know that the best kringles are found in Racine County, whose Danish immigrants have made it “America’s Kringle Capital.”
Wyoming: Cowboy cookies
The connection between cowboys and cowboy cookies is unclear, unless it’s just that cowboys, like the rest of us, enjoy oatmeal cookies packed with chocolate chips, pecans, and coconut. Regardless, as the state with the most enduring cowboy cred, Wyoming gets cowboy cookies.
Except for guess what. You watch. Now that it’s out here, they’ll ruin it. Somebody will see this perfect, star spangled dessert list and just have to mess with hit. Some dopey Fanati-evangelist will probably take issue with all this, and very soon, I expect to see some lawmakers from Tennessee, or Mississippi, or North Carolina, or some such state will change their perfectly fine dessert choices and replace with something like “Christian Cake” or “God’s Pudding” (so wrong, on so many levels) or “Baptist Bundt Betty” or something like that.
Just as long as there’s no Devil’s Food Cake on the list. Sorry, but I had to go there….
I tend to write long form, and that is because I suffer from a condition called Logorrhea. It is not one of the disorders recognized by the APA as an actual psychiatric condition, but it is one of the go-to words learned by any kid taking the Scripps Spelling Bee seriously, so that’s good enough for me.
My condition--that of being perpetually logorrheic--is why it is odd for me to admit, that when it comes to the issue of States Naming Official State Things, I have precious little to say. Mr. Pickwick expounds upon the issue to make his larger point: Why the hell are we using this to be divisive, as a nation? As a once great people? I can’t think of anything to add to this that would not be an act of gilding the lily.
When I think about this business of States Naming Things, it is to me a kind of perfect Trifecta. (Redundant, I will grant you, as a Trifecta is, by definition, a kind of perfect choosing.) That said, to me, States Naming Things represents the perfect trifecta of Pride, Unity, and sheer Joy (read also whimsy, silliness, or liking a thing just because it’s so cool. Read “cool” as: beautiful, tasty, rare, delightful.)
And when it comes to States Naming Things, even when the process creates debate, the debate is endearing. Refreshing. However it all shakes down, it’ll all be OK. America will survive it.
I have always liked the idea of States Naming Things, and I was once again so enchanted with this idea that I got swept away in examples, and that is about the best I have.
Mississippi, known for generating racial controversy from time to time, really stepped up in the Naming Things arena, when they named as their Official State Toy the teddy bear. The reason is obvious and appropriate. Many of us know that the Teddy Bear was born when its likeness, Teddy Roosevelt couldn’t shoot a little bear cub, but how many know that happened in the Great State of Mississippi?
And leave it to one of our great Midwestern states, to be ambitious enough to have a whole big Official State Meal: Oklahoma designated an Official State Meal In 1988, consisting of fried okra, squash, cornbread, barbecue pork, biscuits, sausage and gravy, grits, corn, strawberries, chicken fried steak, pecan pie, and black-eyed peas.
The state of New York almost had a great moment, when they considered making the rescue dog their state dog. One wonders if New York realizes the ironic tragicomedy involved in their decision not to choose that dog, as their state dog, and instead choose something else? But at least there was an impulse, there, for a brief, shining moment.
The legislators in Albany, New York also had knock-down, drag-out time of it when a group of 4th graders, as part of a ‘tween civics project, tried to get yogurt named as New York’s official state snack. The verbal fracas was so heated it found its way onto a now infamous segment on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, along with Senior State Snack Correspondent, Jessica Williams. Your tax dollars at work.
There’s just no point in being a bad sport in this business of Naming State Things; that’s what’s so cool about it. It forces you to play nice. Pennsylvania Rep. Kelly Lewis, for example, has publicly denounced the whole business as “a total waste of time”. He thinks there are no grounds for wasting time picking a state dirt, and shuffles off from the idea of naming a state dance. But everybody who knows Lewis is aware of the fact that he only took that stance after his effort to make Hazelton the state soil failed hugely in a 177-22 vote. He has mud on his face. So much for pouting in the halls of the legislature.
And speaking of 4th graders, another group of them in the Great State of New Hampshire actually visited the halls of their legislature, to watch (they thought) their proposed bill become law: That the Red Tailed Hawk should become the Official Raptor for the Granite State. Wow! Not only did the legislature vote against it, as the poor little crushed schoolchildren looked on, but one representative (again, while the children were watching) swooped down on the children’s proposal, likening the raptor’s shredding of its prey to an abortion, using his time to attack planned parenthood. Again, wow. There must have been a heck of a lot of awkward conversations around dinner tables across New Hampshire that night.
And if I may wax serious for a moment, and reference Mr. Pickwick’s article about The Bible, there is a way to declare a state book that doesn’t involve hurting feelings, or getting everybody’s librarian bloomers in a bunch. Oregon did the cool thing: they threw the process out to the people—you can’t get any more democratic than that--and asked the populace to nominate titles. Not surprisingly, the good people of the Beaver State chose breathtakingly wonderful books that were either written by Oregonians, or set in that beautiful state, or both. See? This way, no matter who wins, everybody in Oregon wins. This criteria, once applied, however, would not work for Tennessee—as last time I heard, God does not live (exclusively) in Tennessee. Nor is Genesis set in Tennessee. Although I could be wrong. I expect a forum comment to suggest as much any minute now.
For a taste of good old fashioned Oregonian pride, and as a nudge to Tennessee, here is a list of fine books, excerpted from an article on the Oregon Public Broadcasting site: Ken Kesey is clearly the winner among our listeners. “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Sometimes a Great Notion” are fighting for the top honors on our Facebook page, Jaz Marie suggesting a third Kesey-related pick with Tom Wolfe’s “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.” The Happy Canyon Pageant in Pendleton chimed in with a lesser-known, but rodeo-focused Kesey pick, “Last Go Round.” Ursula LeGuin also received a lot of love, with “The Lathe of Heaven”, “The Wind’s 12 Quarters”, and “The Left Hand of Darkness” getting numerous mentions. Several listeners pushed for a relatively recent release in “Mink River” by Brian Doyle, including caller Lorraine from Oregon City. Geek Love” by Katherine Dunn got quite a few shout outs on our website. Doug called in to suggest H.L. Davis’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Honey in the Horn,” which was a popular suggestion among our listeners. Sue called from Portland to suggest “Winterkill” by Craig Lesley, and a number of listeners agreed with her. Oregon State Librarian MaryKay Dahlgreen added Lesley’s “Burning Fences” to the list. A few commenters suggested said, “Dune” by Frank Herbert, saying he went to high school in Oregon, and was inspired by the Oregon Dunes near Florence. Andrea Sargeant and several others said “The Jump-Off Creek” by Molly Gloss. We saw a few votes for “The River Why” and “The Brothers K” by David James Duncan. A couple of listeners gave the nod to “Ricochet River” by Robin Cody. Arras Heiress said “Trask” by Don Berry, which several others also mentioned. A couple of people suggested “The Clan of the Cave bear” by Jean Auel. Several commenters pointed out that Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita” was written in Oregon and was a worthy contender. (“Your Picks For Oregon's Official State Book by Dave Blanchard” by Dave Blanchard, OPB, March 27, 2015)
But back to the fun.
What is life without music? And by logical extension, what is a state without an Official State Song? Most states choose something traditional, predictable—something with the name of the state in the title. Ladies and Gentlemen, put your hands together, and give it up for the Buckeye State! Ohio, almost inexplicably, chose “Hang on Sloopy” for their Official State Song.
And while the fight isn’t over, talk about something that is hard to equivocate: nobody thinks of Kansas without thinking of “The Wizard of Oz”, and that’s why the powers that be are sensibly on their way to naming the Kairn Terrier as the Official State Dog. Again, see, non-partisan. (If someone is a Republican, is their dog, then, a Republican? Would a liberal’s dog vote Bernie by Proxy? All dogs are Libertarians, that’s what I think. Except for untrained dogs, who are clearly anarchists. And cats all being monarchists.)
Mr. Pickwick was quick to champion Oregon’s Official Microbe, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Brewer’s Yeast, but let’s not give short shrift to Wisconsin’s ongoing effort make Lactococcus Lactis their Official State Microbe. Touted as “not your average microbe”, (something I must admit I never pondered), the hardworking little bacterium used to make cheddar, Colby, and Monterey Jack cheese is an “unsung hero” of the nation’s Number 1 producing cheese state. Is this microbe lesser than the Brewer’s Yeast microbe? Don’t make me choose between my cheese and my beer.
Rhode Island, tiny but mighty, is so far the only state to be pushing through a state appetizer: calamari. One of my great weaknesses, especially the batter fried ones at Bonaroti’s in Vienna, Virginia.
In 2009, the Washington State Legislature was ready to name Aplets and Cotlets the Official State Candy, but not if the Almond Roca crowd had a say. Since no official candy is named on its site, I am guessing the matter got ugly, and was left unresolved.
The Mormon state has chosen “Jello” for its Official State Dessert.
The Official State Sport of Maryland is jousting.
And the Official State Sport of Colorado is—wait for it—Pack Burro racing. Nascar, watch out.
South Carolina actually has an actual Official State Craft Grass, as in, a sturdy kind of grass used to weave baskets, an art it proudly attributes to its slaves (not sure how I feel about that), who brought with them, in those slave ships, the knowledge of how to weave baskets so tight they would hold water. The slaves are free, but the art form continues—using the nation’s only Official Crafting Material, Craft Grass, aka Sweetgrass (Muhlenbergia filipes)
And New Mexico. You have to love New Mexico. Of all the fifty states et al in this glorious country of ours, New Mexico is the only one that has … wait for it …an Official State Question! This, from the website Mental Floss: New Mexico really got down to the symbolic nitty gritty when, in 1996, the legislature passed a House Joint Memorial declaring "Red or green?" as the official state question. The options refer to the red or green chilies native to New Mexican cuisine, and is the inquiry most often heard in local restaurants. Chiles are the state's top cash crop, and the adoption of the peculiar question acknowledges the pod's historical importance. Unsurprisingly, New Mexico is the only state to have such a designation. (Mental Floss, 13 Bizarrely Specific Official State Appetizers, Toys, Soils, and More.)
Massachusetts did not expect to create a global “Kerfluffle” when it decided to name “The Fluffernutter” sandwich as the Official State Sandwich.
And sometimes, the Proud and Joyful Unity (the Trifecta again) even trickles down to smaller provinces than the big ol’ states. I was ambivalent about Madison, Wisconsin until I found out that their Official Bird is the Plastic Pink Flamingo. Now, a visit to Madison is on my bucket list. Even as I make a mental note not to ever move there.
And what list would be complete without a nod towards all fifty state desserts? (Well, Mr. Pickwick’s I guess, since he didn’t get around to addressing the subject.) This list makes me proud to be an American. A fat American, I will grant you. But an American nonetheless. What the heck could be partisan about this list? For the record: only eight of our states have official state desserts. And may I ask, what the hell is up with that. But I offer this list through the creative stylings of L.Z. Anderson, in her playful Slate article, “The United Sweets of America”.
Alabama: Lane cake
Also known as Alabama Lane cake, Lane cake is one of those boozy, eggy, dried-fruit-filled confections we don’t eat enough of these days. Invented by Emma Rylander Lane in the 1890s, a Lane cake is a sponge cake layered with a raisin-bourbon filling and frosted with a marshmallow-y “boiled white frosting.” Lane cake is also to Harper Lee what the madeleine is to Marcel Proust: The baked good makes several appearances in the Alabama-set “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
Alaska: Baked Alaska
OK, fine, so the baked Alaska was not invented in Alaska. It wasn’t even invented by someone who had been to Alaska. Cakes topped with ice cream and encased with meringue were served for decades before Alaska became a state, under names like “omelette surprise” and “omelette à la norvégienne” (Norwegian omelette, probably an allusion to Norway’s cold climate). But it was the name popularized in the 1870s by Delmonico’s Restaurant in New York — a tribute to the newly purchased Department of Alaska — that stuck. It’s easy to see why the visually apt name caught on: The white, mounded dessert bears more than a passing resemblance to the snow-capped Mount McKinley.
Furthermore, Alaska is the only state name that describes a dessert not merely as a modifier, but as a noun. To omit this singular sweet from a list of pseudo-official state desserts would be a dereliction of my duties.
Arizona: Sopaipilla
Sopaipillas are similar to frybread — invented by Arizona’s original residents, the Navajo — which is to say that they’re deep-fried circles or squares of leavened dough. While frybread can be served with sweet or savory fillings, sopaipillas are more commonly served drizzled with honey as a dessert food. Some dessert experts see sopaipillas as more of a New Mexico thing, but it’s not fair for New Mexico to hog all of the American Southwest’s desserts.
Arkansas: Red velvet cake
Red velvet cake is having a moment, according to the New York Times, which insists that the scarlet-hued cake was invented at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York, “though some Southern cake historians believe that story is more legend than fact.” Whatever its true history, red velvet cake is firmly situated in the public imagination as a creation of the South: Who can forget the armadillo-shaped groom’s cake in Steel Magnolias? Granted, Steel Magnolias is technically set in Louisiana, but that’s not far from Arkansas (which doesn’t have any state dessert specialties to speak of). Plus, red velvet cake is colored cardinal and white — the official colors of the University of Arkansas.
California: Meyer lemon cake
Meyer lemons, a cross between lemons and oranges, grow easily in California’s temperate climate, so it’s no wonder Alice Waters’ crew at Chez Panisse seized on them when they were inventing California cuisine in the 1960s. Nowadays, elegant, not-too-sweet Meyer lemon cake is ubiquitous on West Coast restaurant menus.
Colorado: Pot candy
The legalization of recreational marijuana in Colorado at the beginning of this year opened the floodgates to a vigorous and controversial edibles industry. It was never any question that Colorado’s state dessert would be laced with THC — the question was, what kind of sweet edible should get the crown? Cookies? Brownies? Gummy bears?
Thankfully, Maureen Dowd recently settled matters in an instant-classic column describing a “caramel-chocolate flavored candy bar” that made her “convinced that I had died and no one was telling me.” If you’d like to make weed-laced caramel-chocolate bars at home in Dowd’s honor, here is one of many recipes available online.
Connecticut: Spice cookies
Connecticut is known as the Nutmeg State not because nutmeg grows there (it doesn’t), but because “its early inhabitants had the reputation of being so ingenious and shrewd that they were able to make and sell wooden nutmegs” — in other words, they were able to pass off fake nutmegs as real ones. It’s a bit of a convoluted origin story, and one that doesn’t speak well of the state’s integrity. But it does make a certain amount of sense: Connecticut’s earliest settlers were Dutch, and the Dutch are big on baking spices. Spice cookies aren’t quite as popular in Connecticut as they are in the Old World, but it’s hard to find fault with the soft, aromatic New England variety.
Delaware: Strawberry shortcake
Strawberries were declared the official state fruit of Delaware in 2010, and you can’t argue with House Bill No. 203 (“Whereas, strawberries are an important product of Delaware’s agricultural industry; and whereas children and adults love to pick their own strawberries; and whereas strawberries can be a refreshing part of everyone’s diet …”). Strawberry shortcake is indubitably the best strawberry dessert, so this one was easy.
Florida: Key lime pie
Key lime pie is the official state pie of Florida. There is an annual Key lime pie festival in Cape Canaveral. Florida media outlets specialize in lists of the best Key lime pies served in the state. And the limes in Key lime pie are named after the Florida Keys. This choice was easy as pie.
Georgia: Peach cobbler
The Georgia Peach Council might have the slickest website of any American agricultural association. Not only is the design eye-catching, with accents of aquamarine and, well, peach, but you can also win an iPad if you share your “Georgia Peach experiences.” Point being, Georgia peach growers know that peach is practically synonymous with Georgia, and they’re milking it for all its worth.
Georgia has its pick of peach desserts, so why did I assign it peach cobbler instead of the more obvious peach pie? The Georgia Peach Council offers two cobbler recipes but no pie recipes. Surprising, yes, but I’m not about to argue with professionals.
Hawaii: Shave ice
Does the phrase “shave ice” make your grammatically fastidious brain hurt? You clearly have never had real Hawaiian shave ice, which is so good it’s been known to cure pedantry. Made from large blocks of ice shaved into the finest flakes imaginable, drenched with whatever fruit-flavored syrup your heart desires, and sometimes drizzled with sweetened condensed milk, shave ice might be Hawaii’s most important contribution to American culture. Case in point: America’s first Hawaiian president almost always stops in for some when he’s back in his home state.
Idaho: Huckleberry pie
Did you think Idaho’s state dessert was going to be a potato cake? Come on, now. OK, fine, potato cake exists — but it’s hardly the regional treat huckleberry pie is.
If you’ve never eaten a huckleberry, it’s probably because agricultural scientists haven’t yet figured out how to domesticate them — they only grow in the wild. If you have eaten a huckleberry, you probably live in the vicinity of northern Idaho. Or you’re a black bear. Or both. Either way, you probably like the sweet-tart goodness of huckleberry pie.
Illinois: Brownies
Brownies made their debut at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, so I thought it was only fair to credit Chicago for one of the world’s favorite baked goods. After all, the original recipe, which contains a pound of chocolate and a pound of butter, is a good one.
Indiana: Sugar cream pie
According to the Indiana Foodways Alliance, “Indiana’s contribution to the nation’s pie mythology is sugar cream.” What is a sugar cream pie? The name is pretty literal: It’s a pie whose filling contains cream, flour, sugar, and vanilla — no eggs. It’s also sometimes called Hoosier sugar cream pie, just in case any other state wanted for some reason to take credit for it.
Iowa: Cherry pie
As a famous gourmand once said, “tastes so good, makes a grown man cry.” Every year at the annual fundraiser known as Veishea, Iowa State students sell thousands of cherry pies to raise money for the Veishea Cherry Pie Scholarship Fund. This bake sale tradition has been going on since 1920.
Kansas: Dirt cake
A chilled concoction of instant pudding, imitation whipped cream, and crushed chocolate sandwich cookies, Kansas dirt cake is the most prominent dessert named in honor of Kansas. (I promise, I looked for other ones, but this was it.) Kansas dirt cake is not to be confused with Mississippi mud pie, which is a totally different soil-themed dessert.
Kentucky: Bread pudding
The home of bourbon deserves a bourbon-flavored state dessert, and the very best bourbon-flavored dessert is bread pudding with bourbon sauce. Granted, a bunch of Southern states (notably Louisiana) lay claim to bread pudding, but given that none of those states would be able to make decent bread pudding without bourbon, I’m giving this one to Kentucky.
Louisiana: Bananas Foster
Louisiana has an unfair number of desserts it could plausibly assert ownership of. There’s king cake, which seems too Mardi Gras — specific to represent the Creole State year round. There’s bread pudding, which I gave to Kentucky on a bourbon-related technicality. There are beignets, which are usually eaten more for breakfast or a snack than for dessert.
Then there’s bananas Foster: invented in New Orleans, adequately boozy, easy to set on fire. Both festive enough for Louisiana’s pre-Lenten revelries and simple enough to make any other time of the year. Yes, bananas Foster will do quite nicely.
Maine: Blueberry pie
Maine is the country’s leading producer of lowbush or “wild” blueberries, which tend to be smaller, brighter, and more intensely flavored than the commercially viable highbush blueberries. Predictably, Mainers won’t shut up about their blueberries, and every Mainer you meet probably has a prized wild-blueberry pie recipe to sell you on. The Maine state Legislature’s designation of blueberry pie as the official state dessert in 2011 was a foregone conclusion.
Maryland: Smith Island cake
Smith Island is a tiny community of a few hundred people on the Chesapeake Bay. When they’re not catching soft-shell crabs, Smith Islanders spend their time making absurdly exacting cakes of six to 12 layers interspersed with chocolate icing. The Smith Island Baking Company, the only bakery on Smith Island, has proclaimed itself “the #1 Dessert Company in the World,” and assuming they’re judging on a scale of arduousness, I have to agree. Even though Smith Island cakes aren’t commonly made in the rest of Maryland, they became the official state dessert in 2008 — a testament to Smith Island’s PR power (and to the paucity of other Maryland dessert specialties).
Massachusetts: Boston cream pie
The Parker House Hotel alleges that its chef invented the Boston cream pie — a sponge cake layered with pastry cream and topped with a chocolate fondant — in 1856. History blogger Tori Avey takes issue with that origin story, explaining that “cream pie” was a common 19th-century term for round cakes layered with pastry cream, that the chocolate topping came into play later, and that people only started calling this dessert “Boston cream pie” because there was already a well-known dessert called “Boston cream cake,” which was in fact not a cake but a cream puff. (Got all that?) Regardless, the name stuck, Bostonians embraced it, and no less a distinguished Massachusetts family than the Kennedys championed the dessert as a symbol of the commonwealth. Sometimes, the myth is more important than the reality; this is one of those times.
Michigan: Fudge
Anyone with milk, butter, sugar, and chocolate can make fudge. But the residents of Mackinac Island, Michigan have taken fudge to another level, building an entire tourist industry around it and claiming to have “perfected” it. Michiganders aren’t the only ones who think this: In the history and recipe book “Oh Fudge! A Celebration of America’s Favorite Candy,” author Lee Edwards Benning calls Mackinac Island both “the fudge capital of the United States” and “the fudge capital of the world.” And when “the fudge king of Mackinac Island” died in 1996, he got an obituary in the New York Times, the ultimate endorsement of the importance of one’s life’s work.
Minnesota: Seven-layer bars
Page 4 of “You Know You’re in Minnesota When …” states “a potluck isn’t a potluck without bars.” The best bars for a potluck or any other occasion are seven-layer bars, so called because they contain butter, graham cracker crumbs, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, walnuts, shredded coconut, and sweetened condensed milk, in that order.
Mississippi: Mississippi mud pie
Mississippi mud pie is a relatively dignified affair compared to its thematic cousin, Kansas dirt cake. And it’s a relatively straightforward affair compared to Boston cream pie, in that it’s actually a pie, not a cake, and it contains one or more elements that resemble mud. Depending on the baker, Mississippi mud pie might contain a chocolate crumb crust or a traditional pie crust, which might be filled with chocolate pudding or chocolate cake or brownie batter, which might be topped with whipped cream or ice cream. Two things are certain: It will contain chocolate, and it will be just about the richest thing you ever tasted.
Missouri: Gooey butter cake
Gooey butter cake is a St. Louis curiosity that seems to defy description (despite the seemingly specific nature of its name). It falls somewhere between a sheet cake and a bar: It starts with a layer of thick, extra-buttery yellow cake (doctored from a cake mix box, usually), but the gooey part comes from a filling made of cream cheese, powdered sugar, and eggs. Like most great regional specialties, it comes with a host of contradictory origin stories, all of which place its birth somewhere in the 1930s or 1940s.
This map generally takes a skeptical eye toward breakfast food, but it will make an exception for gooey butter cake: Although many sources identify it as a snack or breakfast dish, I cannot condone eating such a sweet and rich course before sunset.
Montana: S’mores
The s’more was not invented in Montana, but hear me out: Montana is one of the best hiking destinations in the country. It’s home to Glacier National Park and part of Yellowstone; its name means “mountain,” for crying out loud. And anyone who plans a hike, camping trip, or other mountain-based recreational activity without bringing graham crackers, milk chocolate, and marshmallows is a fool. QED.
Nebraska: Popcorn balls
Nebraska is the country’s leading popcorn producer, growing about one-quarter of our national supply. According to legend, popcorn balls were invented during a day of wonky Nebraska weather: First heavy rains sent syrup flowing from sorghum grass into the cornfields, then extreme heat caused the corn to pop, and finally a tornado swept the sugar-coated popcorn into clusters. Climate change makes this story seem actually kind of plausible, but the folktale gives short shrift to whoever really invented candy-coated popcorn spheres, Nebraska’s homegrown contribution to the nation’s dessert menu.
Nevada: Chocolate fondue
The Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas is home to the world’s largest chocolate fondue fountain, which is reason enough to award melted chocolate dip to this state. But the extravagance of Las Vegas isn’t the only relevant factor here: The Silver State is the most mountainous state in the country, according to the National Park Service, and its superficial resemblance to the Swiss Alps lends a nice congruency to the pairing of Nevada with this alpine treat.
New Hampshire: Whoopie pie
New Hampshire, Maine, and Pennsylvania have all claimed ownership of the whoopie pie, which raises a question: Why haven’t any of these states come up with a less cringe-y name for it? (Some people call them “gobs.” Keep working on it!)
Whoopie pies are not pies: They’re chocolate cake disks sandwiched around vanilla frosting or marshmallow fluff. And while the Pennsylvania Amish and Mainers both have strong, proprietary feelings for whoopie pies, Yankee magazine has proclaimed that the best pies are made at a bakery in the Granite State.
New Jersey: Salt water taffy
Atlantic City, New Jersey, has made a number of lasting contributions to Americana: Monopoly, the Miss America pageant, that Bruce Springsteen song and, most importantly, those color-coded candy cylinders that, despite their name, contain no salt water.
New Mexico: Bizcochito
New Mexico became the first state to adopt a state cookie in 1989, when it made things official with this traditional anise-and-orange-scented sugar biscuit. The fact that New Mexico went out of its way to declare a state cookie before anyone else did speaks to a serious-mindedness that this map would be remiss not to respect.
New York: Cheesecake
New York state is much more than New York City — but New York City’s signature dessert has acquired such mythic proportions that it overshadows the rest of the state’s sweets. In fact, New York-style cheesecake, with its impossibly tall and dense layer of cream-cheese filling, has eclipsed all other styles of cheesecake to become America’s definitive cheesecake style.
“In a city of constant ethnic flux, cheesecake is itself a constant, offering something for everyone,” wrote a New York Times reporter in 2004, and the statement still rings true today. The Big Apple has seen its share of culinary fads, but ranking the best slices of cheesecake in the city remains an ever-popular pastime.
North Carolina: Sweet potato pie
Sweet potato pie is one of those pan-Southern desserts, a mainstay of soul food with roots in slave cooking. So why does North Carolina get it, instead of, say, Georgia, Virginia, or Mississippi? Tar Heels grow more sweet potatoes than residents of any other state, which gives them dibs on the tuber’s most illustrious dish.
North Dakota: Krumkake
I must confess that I’ve never been to North Dakota, but I’m nonetheless pretty confident about my choice of krumkake as this state’s dessert. Krumkake is not a crumbcake: It’s a thin, rolled up Norwegian cookie, somewhere between a pizzelle and a waffle cone. And it’s pronounced kroom-cacka.
Here’s why I feel it’s the right choice for North Dakota: The Roughrider State’s official tourism site includes two krumkake mentions on its list of “6 ways to experience ‘home for the holidays’ in North Dakota.” A blog post by one Kaitlin Ring of Williston called “Things North Dakotans Like” lists “krumkake as one North Dakotans’ favorite ethnic foods. (“Ethnic for us is German and Norwegian,” Ring explains.) But what sealed the deal for me was a recipe for krumkake northdakotakitchen.net, presented without comment, as though the reasons for its inclusion were obvious to any North Dakotan worth her salt.
Ohio: Buckeye candy
Buckeye candy is so called for its resemblance to the nut of the buckeye, the state tree of Ohio and nickname for its residents. Like a cross between peanut butter fudge and peanut butter cups, Buckeye candies consist of a ball of sweet peanut butter dough dipped in melted chocolate. Congratulations to Ohio for producing a confection that actually looks like the thing it’s supposed to look like, and that’s delicious to boot.
Oklahoma: Fried pie
“It was an abnormally cold winter in the year 1893.” So begins the rather dramatic origin story of Oklahoma’s oldest fried pie company. The tale continues, “The different ranchers in the Arbuckle Mountains had their ranch hands go out into the midst of the inclement weather to tend to the cattle …”
Long story short, the ranchers were miserable that winter until one resourceful woman started making them fried pies. That woman’s granddaughter, Nancy Fulton, is now known as “the Fried Pie Lady,” and she has turned her inherited knowledge of fried pies — fruit-filled turnovers, basically — into a miniature empire that’s extended its tentacles into Texas and Arkansas.
Oregon: Blackberry cobbler
Blackberries grow like weeds in the Pacific Northwest, and Oregon is the top producing state. Fresh blackberries are pretty good raw, but they’re even better cooked into a sweet, buttery batter — try this gorgeous recipe.
Pennsylvania: Banana split
Thanks in part to the sugar-loving Pennsylvania Dutch, the Keystone State lays claim to loads of desserts: apple dumplings, shoofly pie, whoopie pies, etc. But the United Sweets of America can choose only one, and it’s a classic of the dessert canon. In 1904, a young soda jerk named David “Doc” Strickler halved a banana lengthwise, nestled some scoops of ice cream in between the two halves, added some whipped cream and flavored syrups, and made history in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.
If this provenance weren’t enough, the chocolate sauce that’s a required topping on all banana splits provides a nice nod to one of Pennsylvania’s most famous brands.
Rhode Island: Frozen lemonade
Rhode Island was a tough one: It boasts two iconic sweet substances, coffee milk and frozen lemonade. After a lot of reflection, I decided coffee milk qualifies primarily as a beverage, not a dessert. (It’s literally just milk sweetened with coffee-flavored syrup.) Frozen lemonade also possesses beveragelike qualities, but at the moment it’s served, this tart, granita-like slushy is thick enough to eat with a spoon, which makes it a dessert in my book. The most famous purveyor of frozen lemonade in Rhode Island is Del’s, which has been cooling palates since 1948.
South Carolina: Coconut cake
Many bakers make coconut cakes, but only one baker has trademarked the phrase “Ultimate Coconut Cake.” The creation of pastry chef Claire Chapman, the pastry chef at the Peninsula Grill in Charleston, the Ultimate Coconut Cake® has been fêted by the likes of Martha Stewart and Bobby Stewart. New York Times tastemaker Florence Fabricant describes it thusly: “Coconut-infused butter cream is slathered between six layers of golden poundcake made with coconut milk in the batter. … In Charleston, some brides are ordering it as wedding cake.” The state that has taken coconut cake to its overelaborate zenith is the state that gets coconut cake as its official state dessert.
South Dakota: Kuchen
Like North Dakota, South Dakota has a fair amount of inhabitants of German and Scandinavian extraction. Kuchen just means cake in German, and in South Dakota it can refer to a number of different types of cake, but the type recognized as the official state dessert, according to the 2011 South Dakota Legislative Manual, is “a sweet dough crust filled with custard, which is served plain or studded with fruit, such as prunes, peaches, blueberries and apples.” To get a better sense of how kuchen is made, check out these pictures from last year’s Kuchen Festival in Delmont, South Dakota, or start making reservations for this year’s festival.
Tennessee: Banana pudding
Many states — perhaps all the states — wanted banana pudding as their state sweet. The layered concoction of sliced bananas, vanilla pudding, vanilla wafers, and whipped cream is an honest-to-God American treasure. And Tennessee is the state that has developed a festival worthy of banana pudding’s charms: The National Banana Pudding Festival and Cook-Off has been running for five years in Hickman County, Tennessee. In addition to naming “the best maker of banana pudding in the United States,” the festival crowns a Miss Banana Pudding, a ritual of retrograde sexism that is forgivable only because it’s done for the greater glory of banana pudding.
Texas: Pecan pie
The pecan tree is Texas’ official state tree, the native pecan is Texas’ official state nut, and San Saba is the self-proclaimed “pecan capital of the world.” Does it surprise you that the Texas House of Representatives recently named pecan pie the official state pie? It should not. Texas has covered all its bases where it comes to pecans, and to give this Thanksgiving dessert to any other state would just be wrongheaded. (It would also probably qualify as “messing with Texas.”)
Utah: Jell-O
Utah is the only state whose dessert is the same as its meat. (Come to think of it, Jell-O is one of the only desserts that is made out of meat.) There’s a reason the so-called “Mormon Corridor” is also known as the “Jell-O Belt” — Zell-O is the most potent symbol of Latter-day Saint culture and cuisine. (Literally the most potent — remember, Mormons don’t consume coffee, tea, or alcohol.)
Vermont: Maple candy
The Pieces of Vermont store, “Your Vermont maple candy and maple wedding favors specialists,” isn’t the only place you can buy maple candy — a magical confection that is made from pure, concentrated, whipped maple syrup — but it is the most aptly named.
Virginia: Chess pie
Chess pie (the name is possibly a corruption of “chest pie” or “cheese pie”) is filled with a custard containing eggs, butter, flour, sugar, and usually cornmeal. Chess pie is awarded to Virginia because the very first written recipe for such a pie, hiding under the alias “transparent pudding,” appeared in The Virginia House-wife in 1825.
Washington: Nanaimo bars
Yes, Nanaimo bars get their name from Nanaimo, British Columbia, and they are indubitably Canadian by birth. But it’s unsurprising that these sweets, which consist of a layer of graham cracker and nut crust, a layer of pudding or buttercream frosting, and a layer of chocolate, gained popularity south of the Canadian border as well. And it was Seattle-based behemoth Starbucks, which has sold Nanaimo bars seasonally, that introduced them to the rest of America.
Washington, D.C.: Cupcakes
The cupcake craze of the early 21st century did not begin in Washington, D.C., but it ended there. Our nation’s capital is home to several independent cupcake bakeries, including Georgetown Cupcake, which rose to prominence on the TLC reality show “D.C. Cupcakes” — the program that forever linked the District of Columbia with cupcakes in the nation’s imagination. No one tell D.C. that macarons, pie, whoopie pies, and doughnuts are the new cupcake.
West Virginia: Shoofly pie
Shoofly pie is a colorful name for molasses pie. It seems to have been invented, like so many other desserts, by the Pennsylvania Dutch, but molasses is a beloved ingredient throughout Appalachia, as evidenced by the West Virginia Molasses Festival, held annually in Arnoldsburg, West Virginia, since 1967.
Wisconsin: Kringle
What is a kringle, you ask? Why, just head over to kringle.com, which tells you everything you need to know: The home page bears several photographs of the ring-shaped, fruit-filled, streudel-like pastries and a large insignia reading “Official State Pastry of Wisconsin.” Wisconsinites know that the best kringles are found in Racine County, whose Danish immigrants have made it “America’s Kringle Capital.”
Wyoming: Cowboy cookies
The connection between cowboys and cowboy cookies is unclear, unless it’s just that cowboys, like the rest of us, enjoy oatmeal cookies packed with chocolate chips, pecans, and coconut. Regardless, as the state with the most enduring cowboy cred, Wyoming gets cowboy cookies.
Except for guess what. You watch. Now that it’s out here, they’ll ruin it. Somebody will see this perfect, star spangled dessert list and just have to mess with hit. Some dopey Fanati-evangelist will probably take issue with all this, and very soon, I expect to see some lawmakers from Tennessee, or Mississippi, or North Carolina, or some such state will change their perfectly fine dessert choices and replace with something like “Christian Cake” or “God’s Pudding” (so wrong, on so many levels) or “Baptist Bundt Betty” or something like that.
Just as long as there’s no Devil’s Food Cake on the list. Sorry, but I had to go there….
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