Holidays are meant to focus on things like religion, culture, remembrance, giving thanks,
or some combination of these things. Holidays also tend to emphasize the bringing together
of families, friends, and members of the community. However, beyond all that, there is one unifying
factor among all holidays, and that is food. All of the major holidays have come to be
inextricably intertwined with whatever it is that we eat to mark their arrival.
Food reminds us of where we came from and who we are. It's like that iconic episode
of Friends where Monica prepares a "friendsgiving" meal and ends up with way more work than anticipated.
Because, of course, every friend has their own idea of what must be on the menu. As viewers,
we relate, because we know how much it matters if the potatoes are lumpy like Mom used to
make.
"Okay, three kinds of potatoes coming up."
And that brings us to Easter, the source of many a food-related debate. While "ham versus
lamb" is always compelling, the one that never gets old — and often gets weird – is "what's
the best Easter treat?"
Like many popular American holidays, Easter has come to be associated with delicious home
cooked meals, food-centric activities that appeal to the kiddies, and a general noshing
on holiday-themed treats.
But more than any other American holiday — besides Halloween — the food that Easter is overwhelmingly
associated with is candy. Everywhere you turn, it seems people are debating the relative
merits of competing Easter goodies, from which is best, to which is worst, to which makes
your dentist cringe the most.
Among the many instigators leading the charge on this debate is RetailMeNot, with their
annual survey on favorite American Easter candies. In case you were wondering, a whopping
26 percent of Americans count Reese's Mini Peanut Butter Eggs as their favorite Easter
candy, with jelly beans and Cadbury Eggs not far behind, and with Peeps straggling along
in last place with 14 percent, and generic chocolate bunnies barely outranking them.
But as it turns out, one Easter treat that doesn't even get addressed in RetailMeNot's
survey may just be more popular than any Easter candy.
As shocking as it might seem, we're talking about eggs — and, no, we don't mean the
chocolate kind. We're talking about real eggs, the ones that come from chickens, as opposed
to Easter bunnies. More specifically, we're talking about hard-boiled eggs.
The career website, Zippia, may not be the first place you'd go to learn about what Americans
like to eat on Easter. However, it turns out their first-ever survey regarding "most popular
Easter treats in each state," is one of the most enlightening to have ever come out on
the topic.
Premised on the notion that people tend to run more Google searches for things they love,
Zippia decided to conduct a Google Trends analysis as to what foods Americans in each
state were searching for when it came to Easter treats. What they discovered is that in 14
states, the most popular, searched-about Easter treat is not even a candy, let alone a sweet.
It's hard-boiled eggs.
The 14 states that seem to have inadvertently revealed their preference for hard-boiled
eggs over the chocolate cream-filled ones are: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Maryland,
Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and
Wisconsin.
Of course, to be fair, some of Easter's hard-boiled eggs do, in fact, turn up in the sweet treat,
Italian Easter bread. However, that certainly can't account for all the hard-boiled eggs
that residents of these 14 states appear to be chowing down on in celebration of Easter.
As it turns out, Zippia's survey on the "most popular Easter treats in each state" is enlightening
for reasons beyond the fact that it reveals just how many Americans look forward to eating
hard-boiled eggs, as opposed to candy, on Easter.
For example, Zippia's survey also revealed that among New Yorkers, search volume is disproportionately
high for Kinder Easter Eggs, which don't even make an appearance in RetailMeNot's 2021 Easter
candy survey.
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a single one.