The Thanksgiving side dish ‘New England is losing its mind over’

The data analysts at FiveThirtyEight — perhaps best known for their statistical breakdowns of politics and sports — have taken a lighthearted look at people’s Thanksgiving tables this week.

They used one of their regular reader surveys to gauge what people around the country are serving for Thanksgiving. To nobody’s surprise, the main dish for the vast majority — 82 percent — of respondents nationwide is turkey.

But the side dishes were a bit more diverse, and FiveThirtyEight determined the most disproportionately common side dishes in each region.

Up in our region, the Northeast, that side dish is squash. FiveThirtyEight explains:

“New England is losing its mind over squash, with 56 percent demanding it on their table, compared with only 18 percent of the nation as a whole. This is, by far, the most confusing finding of this whole pursuit. Did Gronk endorse squash or something?”

(Pay no mind to the snide Patriots comment — this is the same outfit that considers Peyton Manning the best quarterback in history based solely on his adjusted regular season passing yardage per attempt over the league average. I’m sure thousands of Colts and Broncos fans over the years would much rather have those obscure statistics in their record books than multiple Super Bowl titles… but I digress…)

The Southeast’s side dish of choice was mac & cheese, most of the Western U.S. preferred salad, a big chunk of the Midwest was into green beans, and a some other clusters of states leaned toward cornbread and biscuits, respectively.

See the full map on the FiveThirtyEight site by clicking here.

When the conversation turned to desert, the country widely support pumpkin pie as the top choice, but the No. 2 after-dinner option varied.

Here in New England, we disproportionately serve apple pie compared to the other regions, which preferred cherry pie, sweet potato pie or pecan pie, depending on the part of the country in question.

What’s your favorite Thanksgiving side dish? Leave your answer in the comments below or share it on Facebook.

Featured main page photo by Ben Franske, used under Creative Commons license.