Many states name an official food, and the picks rarely match the postcard version of a state. Wikipedia’s list of official U.S. state foods shows Connecticut with pizza, Texas with chili and a handful of choices that are harder to guess. Seven of them stand out as the ones most likely to surprise visitors.
The picks below run from a thin-crust pie to a gelatin dessert, and each is attributed to the list or to the source named beside it. Some come from a law, some from a resolution and one from a legislative add-on that spells out how to serve it.
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1. Connecticut: Pizza
Connecticut’s official state food is pizza, named in 2021, according to the list. The best-known local style, per Wikipedia’s entry on New Haven-style pizza, is a thin-crust, coal-fired Neapolitan pizza locally called apizza. It originated in 1925 at Frank Pepe Pizzeria Napoletana.
The classic plain pie is crust, oregano, tomato sauce and a little grated pecorino romano, with mozzarella considered an optional topping. Pepe’s is credited with inventing the white clam pie, made with littleneck clams, olive oil, oregano, grated cheese and chopped garlic.
2. Texas: Chili
Texas made chili its state dish in 1977 through House Concurrent Resolution No. 18 of the 65th Legislature, the Texas State Library’s list of state symbols shows. The list also names pan de campo as state bread, peach cobbler and pecan pie, and tortilla chips and salsa as the state snack.
Wikipedia describes chili con carne as a spicy stew of Mexican origin with chili peppers, meat, tomatoes and beans, and says recipes provoke disputes among aficionados. Bernardino de Sahagún’s 1529 writings described stews seasoned with chili pepper being eaten in the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan. Frenz Hub has a post titled 14 Strange Thanksgiving Traditions That Everyone Pretends Aren’t Weird.
3. Vermont: Apple Pie, With Instructions
Vermont’s statute says “The State Pie shall be apple pie,” in the state’s legislative statutes, added in 1999. A later bill added serving language, described below.
Tasting Table, in a piece updated Dec. 28, 2022, reports that language added to House Bill 302 asked for “a good faith effort” to offer the pie with cold milk, a cheddar slice of at least half an ounce, or a large scoop of vanilla ice cream. The outlet could not determine whether any enforcement exists. A sister site has a post titled 10 Apple Varieties Bakers Reach for in the Fall.
4. Utah: Jell-O
Utah’s entry in the list is Jell-O, recognized by Senate resolution only as “a favorite snack food” in 2001. Wikipedia’s Jell-O entry says the resolution noted that Utah had the highest per-capita consumption for many years, and that Governor Michael O. Leavitt declared an annual Jell-O Week.
The gelatin dessert began in Le Roy, New York, in 1897, with Pearle Bixby Wait. A Jell-O pin was part of the 2002 Olympics. Frenz Hub has a post titled 20 Odd American Traditions That Confuse the Rest of the World.
5. Missouri: The Ice Cream Cone
Missouri’s official state dessert, named in 2008, is the ice cream cone. Wikipedia’s entry says the earliest certain evidence of cones comes from Mrs A. B. Marshall’s Book of Cookery in 1888, and that cones were edible wafers in France and Italy earlier in the century.
The entry also tells the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair story: after an ice cream vendor ran out of paper cups, a concessionaire named Ernest A. Hamwi curled a waffle cookie into a holder. It adds that this is believed by some, although there is much dispute, to be when cones became mainstream. Frenz Hub has a post titled 15 Foods From the ’60s Most Boomers Loved With a Passion.
6. Oklahoma: A Whole Meal
Oklahoma did not pick one dish. Its state meal, added in 1988, lists chicken-fried steak, barbequed pork, fried okra, squash, cornbread, grits, corn, sausage with biscuits and gravy, black-eyed peas, strawberries and pecan pie.
Wikipedia’s chicken-fried steak entry describes a beefsteak, most often tenderized cube steak, coated with seasoned flour and deep-fried or pan-fried, and lists the region as West Texas and Oklahoma. A sister site has a post titled 9 Pies That Show Up on Thanksgiving Tables Across America.
7. Massachusetts: The Chocolate Chip Cookie
Massachusetts made the chocolate chip cookie its state cookie in 1997, according to the list. Wikipedia’s entry says Ruth Wakefield created her recipe in the 1930s at the Toll House Inn, which she ran with her husband, Kenneth, in Whitman, Massachusetts.
The Toll House cookies were first published in the 1938 edition of her book Toll House Tried and True Recipes as Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookies. The dough was chilled overnight, shaped with metal rings, baked until crisp and served with ice cream. Several accounts exist of how the recipe came about, and sources differ on the exact year.
A Light Reality Check
State food lists change as legislatures add new picks, and a few items are formal laws while others are resolutions or customs. Utah’s Jell-O recognition, for example, is a Senate resolution only, and Vermont’s serving instruction is described by one outlet as a request for a good faith effort.
Visitors may also find that locals dispute the details, whether over chili recipes or the origin of the cone. The list reflects what lawmakers recorded, and each state’s story is longer than a single line.
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
Image: Rhododendrites – CC BY-SA 4.0/Wikimedia Commons
