The Most Popular Thanksgiving Pie in Every Corner of the Country

For Thanksgiving dinner, the menu is always pretty set. Other holidays offer a bit of selection: On Christmas, families tend to choose between turkey and ham; on St. Patrick’s Day, you can either drink Guinness or beer that has been dyed green. But on Thanksgiving, it’s always turkey and stuffing and green bean casserole and cranberry sauce and so on and so forth. One of the few places where you can find some menu wiggle room (for those who aren’t absolute anarchists!) is with the pie. Sure, pumpkin pie is probably the most traditional option, but a recent survey from the people a GE Appliances suggests that plenty of regions of the country prefer to go another route.

After polling 1,550 Americans across the country, GE discovered that, yes, most areas favor pumpkin as their Thanksgiving pie of choice. The South Atlantic, East North Central, West North Central, Mountain, and Pacific regions all go the way of the gourd. But the other four regions apparently believe that the pumpkin should be left for Halloween.

The New England and Mid-Atlantic regions — which collectively contain Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania — agreed that apple pie is a better seasonal choice (as well as obviously being more American!) The East South Central states — which are Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee — came to a split decisions but neither choice was pumpkin: Respondents from this area were split between whether apple or pecan pie was the best selection. And finally, the West South Central states of Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Texas responded that pecan alone was the most worthy pie for their Thanksgiving feast.

Of course, if you live in one of these areas, we probably don’t need to tell you any of this: You’re likely well aware of your own family’s Thanksgiving pie traditions. But as GE points out, this map could prove handy if you’re heading to dinner in an area you’re not originally from: You don’t want to show up with the wrong pie! Though good news: If you do, you can always just distract everyone from your faux pas by bringing up politics.