Thanksgiving menus usually don’t change much. But there MIGHT be a shift happening, regarding PIE.
A new poll asked more than 7,000 Americans about their favorite pies to eat on Thanksgiving. And the usual suspects rose to the top: 30% said pumpkin pie, 20% said apple, 15% said pecan, and 9% said sweet potato.
But pumpkin and pecan were heavily boosted by OLDER generations, Boomers and Gen X.
Younger people were more likely to pick apple and CHOCOLATE pies. It’s so significant that chocolate could replace pumpkin within a generation or two.
That is, if pies themselves don’t go out of style. 10% of Gen Z’ers say they don’t like to eat pie on Thanksgiving, compared to just 4% of Boomers.
Speaking of pumpkin pie, Google Trends put out a list of the stand-out Thanksgiving pies by state. (The pies searched there more than average.)
Pumpkin is #1 in California, New York, North Dakota, New Mexico, and New Jersey. Apple pie is #1 throughout the rest of the northeastern states, along with Wisconsin, Michigan, Missouri, and Alaska.
Custard style pies are surprisingly popular for Thanksgiving in a lot of states. Most of the western states like key lime pie, cream pie, or banana cream pie. Florida also likes key lime.
Ohio likes butterscotch, Tennessee and North Carolina like buttermilk, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Arkansas like peanut butter pie.
For fruit pies, several states prefer cherry, including Colorado, Oklahoma, Iowa, and Illinois, Washington goes for blackberry, Arizona likes grape.
Sweet potato pie is loved in the Deep South, Texas likes pecan, Pennsylvania likes shoofly pie, Oregon wants “tamale pie”, and Kansas is the only state to go for “Frito chili pie.”
(Here’s the full map. And some people are making pie-inspired DRINKS.)
