Hmmm...In reading the food timeline site, you'll find a section that has always garnered my attention, even tho' it's one of the smaller entries on the site. It deals with "Official" state foods.

For example...did you know that Tomato Juice is the official beverage of Ohio?

Or that the Chocolate Chip cookie is the official cookie of both Massachusetts and Pennsylvania? (Which strikes me as very lazy on the part of Pennsylvania, as there are many other cookies to choose from. For example...Kolachkes, honoring the large polish communities found in PA and proving once again that I have an opinion on everything).

Oklahoma has an official State Meal, consisting of "barbecued pork, chicken-fried steak, and sausage with biscuits and gravy, fried okra, squash, grits, corn, and blackeyed peas, cornbread (and biscuits) and a "Dessert" of strawberries and pecan pie. Which leads me to the opinion that this the one good thing to come out of Oklahoma.

The problem is that out of the 50 states, only 9 have some sort of "official" food. I find this fact tremendously sad, in my own obsessive kind of way. At the risk of sounding like a housewife in a gingham dress, I wonder what better way to celebrate the diversity of our nations food than having each state tell us what foods best represent their regions?

Peach Pie from Georgia? Cheesecake from New York? BBQ beef from Texas? The possibilities are endless.

Wow...I think I just out-obsessed myself.