America’s most-searched recipes of 2012 (so far)
The folks over at The Daily Meal, a national food blog, got curious about what Americans have been interested in cooking these days. So they conducted some research, using the most-searched terms on their own website and several other leading search engines in the country.
According to The Daily Meal editor Anne Dolce’s report, here’s how they continued the research: “From there, we dove even deeper into our research to find out not only what foods the country was craving, but what people wanted to do with those foods. By using average monthly searches for highly searched recipes, we crafted a unique algorithm that weighted The Daily Meal searches against other search engines to yield a search score for each recipe that would help us rank the recipes.”
2. Meatballs
3. Chocolate Cake
4. Chocolate Chip Cookies
5. Bread
6. Pasta Salad
7. Spaghetti
8. Pasta Sauce
9. Banana Bread
10. Beef Steak
11. Baked Chicken
12. Chicken Soup
13. Apple Pie
14. Pizza Dough
15. Cornbread
16. Mashed Potatoes
17. Chicken and Rice
18. Pumpkin Pie
19. Deviled Eggs
20. Chicken Chili
21. Baked Salmon
22. Shrimp Scampi
23. Chocolate Cupcakes
24. Fish Tacos
25. Bean Chili
October 12, 2012 - 9:46 AM
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Do people really need a recipe for mashed potatoes?
I think it’s interesting! As you said, mostly very basic food items. Makes me think about what I search for when I use a search engine for recipes. Guacamole, “easy Mexican food dishes,” and chicken dishes are the last few I can think of that I searched.
Off topic, but not sure if you saw my post on the entry about Tudor’s and Downtown Soul from Sept.
Good News for DOWNTOWN SOUL fans: They have re-opened at 515 2nd Street in Vinton as of this morning! I have heard a lot of good things about the food while they were at their former Downtown Roanoke location and am looking forward to trying out their new location in Vinton!
Haha.. Who needs a recipe for mashed potatoes and pork chops?
I very seldom use recipes. What I cook always consists of what we have on hand. A little bit of this and a pinch of that.
Few things have turned out not-so-good.
I think people need cook more without recipes. If you think it would taste good together try it. How do they think recipes came to be?? Trial and error!
Yes, I agree they are basic recipes and it could be that the their mothers always opened a can or a box to make these basic recipes. Maybe they just wanted to make the item from scratch. I know that I would open a box to make a chocolate cake or cupcakes. This is just my opinion and I too am surprised by the results.
Off topic, but I enjoyed A Taste of Sweden today. Could have lived w/out the pickled herring though.
At first I was surprised by the run-of-the-mill nature of these recipes, but then it occurred to me that people might be looking for new ways to fix these mainstays. Sometimes, even if it’s an ingredient they hadn’t thought of or a preparation method they hadn’t considered. I found an excellent sage brine for pork chops that changed the way I make something I’ve been cooking for decades.
Hey JT, thanks for the tip. I will see if I can get in touch with the owners for a bit more info.
Regarding the simplicity of the list, I wonder if it has to do with the fact that a lot of young people who are just starting out on their own want to learn to make the basics – the kinds of foods their mom or dad or grandparents made – but they aren’t sure how.
Still, I know many of us Google recipes regardless of our age so that might not be an explanation.
I would tend to agree that perhaps this is people wanting to learn to make foods from scratch, or people wanting to find a new way to make something because they’re bored of their usual recipe.
Jeff, I’ve probably made a gazillion pasta salads in my life, but when I need to make one I’ll still cruise through the recipes to see if anything new has been invented since the last time I made one.
But baked salmon? Meatballs?
Debbie, ha! My great grandfather came to the US from Sweden when he was only 17, and my grandfather swore he came here looking for something decent to eat. Love Sweden and my Swedish relatives, but outside of the meatballs and lingonberry stuff, the food…meh.
Since so many mothers work and have been doing so for years, it’s quite possible that many people didn’t learn “scratch” cooking at home. Not many people rush home to spend an hour or more preparing a meal because of time constraints. Even some of the cooking shows have featured simple dishes, such as mashed potatoes, fried potatoes, meatloaf, etc. My cooking style is nothing like my mother’s because she would open cans and just dump the contents into a pot and heat it, no seasoning whatsoever. Almost everything I prepare is from scratch with as little canned food as possible, unless it’s home canned. “Foodies” are the ones likely to visit a food blog and have many different opinions on how something should be prepared. I say more power to those who are trying to learn basics or who are looking for new ways to do things.
Kristen, I did like the meatballs and lingonberry sauce/jam and the cracker and slice of cheese they had in the container. The cheese was buttery and very good. Everything else was definitely, meh. The ladies serving the food were very sweet though.
I think it’s kind of sad.
1. Apparently no one uses paper recipes anymore which…okay fine. I get that. No actual gripe there.
2. People no longer know how to cook. Seriously? Mashed potatoes? Cornbread?? SPAGHETTI?????
Srsly?
I have recipes for about a third of the list memorized and I don’t really even cook THAT much.
Then again, I know a lot of women only slightly younger than myself who take great pride in the fact that they can’t boil water. -_-;
I guess we should be happy people are at least looking stuff up and TRYING to learn.