Sweet Tea Points the Way
I remember years ago a sociologist told me about a study where researchers determined where the real American South began versus the Mason Dixon Line (which is often referred to as the actual border) by figuring in all the places where sweet iced tea was featured on the menu.
The more restaurants with sweet tea, the more Southern it was.
For no good reason, the memory of that conversation materialized in my skull this afternoon, and I wondered if I could do a similar search using Google Insights.
Sure enough, when I searched to see which states did the most Googling for “Sweet Tea,” the South popped out of the data. Neat.
Still, some states seemed underrepresented. Why? I’m not sure; maybe sweet tea is so ubiquitous not everyone needs to Google it. So, I did another search for turnip greens, and it yielded a strong truly Southern digital landscape.
You can see the Google Insights search for sweet tea here.
You can watch a neat flash animation based on the original study here.
A better search is “grits”. Makes the distinction much more clear.
The very best things to try are: boiled peanuts, deep-fried okra, moon pies. Grits have moved deeply into Midwest. If you can find a way to scan
the use of “Coke” to mean any soda pop, you’ll hit big time: ‘Bring me a Coke, please.” “What kind?” “Mmmm…Dr. Pepper will be OK.”
A little late to the party, as usual, but I found one term that seems especially striking:
http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=%22pimento%20cheese%22&geo=US&cmpt=q
Love to you, my former HA colleague!