Don't get me wrong. I love deviled eggs on a Fourth of July
picnic. But I can't imagine eating them on Thanksgiving when I'm stuffing
myself with, well , stuffing, turkey, sweet potatoes, green beans, and leaving
some room for pumpkin pie.
But apparently some 16,000 people, on Thanksgiving Eve, actually
searched for recipes for "deviled eggs" on the popular Website, Allrecipes.com. In a fun and fascinating look into what Americans may have been cooking up for
Thanksgiving, Kim Severson's article on the front page of today's New York Times takes us on a geographic tour of the
recipes that topped the online hit parade.
Not surprisingly, number one, by far, was "sweet potato
casserole," with 65,000 recipe queries nationwide by 9 p.m. Wednesday, particularly in a wide Eastern swath of the U.S., below New England. Other traditional Thanksgiving
favorites were of course among the top searches, including pumpkin pie, green bean
casserole, pecan and apple pie, stuffing...you get the picture.
But for every 1,000 searches for "sweet potato casserole,"
some 251 people were looking for ways to make deviled eggs (just ahead of the
number of people trying to figure out how to make mashed potatoes). A map of the continental U.S. shows that "above average number of searches" popped in all part of the country, from the upper Rockies to the mid-Atlantic.
As pretty much a non-cook (I can manage
a turkey and stuffing without going online), I still like to read recipes in the weekly newspaper sections and even tear them out, never to make them. So out of curiousity, I took a quick peak at what deviled
egg recipes were showing up on Allrecipes.com.
Turns out there are 48 to choose from, with first on the list "Pen's
deviled deviled eggs" (made from spicy brown mustard and deviled ham). The
highest rating, 5 stars, goes to "no yolk deviled eggs" (a lighter version
which sounds like no fun!), followed by the polar opposite, "bacon cheddar
deviled eggs" (no explanation needed).
So I'm going to stash them away for next summer and dash off
to the traditional Thanksgiving dinner being hosted by my husband's parents in
Chicago. I trust there will be no
deviled eggs.
This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2009/11/deviled-eggs-for-thanksgiving/30897/
