What Should Really Be Utah's Official Food, According To Reddit

Kentucky has the hot brown, Georgians love their pecan pie and Pennsylvania's obviously cheesesteak country, at least according to one Reddit thread. The debate began back in 2019 when one user turned to the site to find out what recipes best represent each and every U.S. state, so that she could make each one and document the journey on Instagram.

Clearly, people had a lot to say about the topic because the Redditor received over 24,000 replies. "I am completely overwhelmed and grateful with the amount of suggestions!!! This will be more than enough to get me through this challenge, thank you Reddit!!!" she wrote in an update to the original thread. Not surprisingly, people have major feelings about the most appropriate dish for each state. Food & Wine even culled through the responses to document the winner and runner-up for each one. Few, if any, had stronger opinions than the Rocky Mountain Region state of Utah.

Funeral potatoes pull rank over Jell-O

Despite the fact that Jell-O is the current official food of the Beehive State, per Business Insider, many commenters on the Reddit thread insist that funeral potatoes are far more quintessentially Utah than the wiggly concoction. "Funeral potatoes are cooked by many people here, Mormon or not, and people frequently debate at family gatherings about which recipe is best," one Reddit user wrote, noting that most people would nonetheless give the "joke answer" of green Jell-O. A different user commented that she particularly loves her mom's exceptionally creamy funeral potato recipe. "I love it with ham and string beans!" she posted on the thread.

Never had funeral potatoes? They're a hot potato casserole, often served as a side dish. You might also know it as hash brown casserole. Standard ingredients in the hearty recipe include frozen, shredded hash browns, sour cream, chopped onion, butter, cheese, cream of chicken soup, all topped with a crunchy layer of crackers, potato chips, or corn flakes, says Taste of Home. We can see why these delicious sounding potatoes would make the top of the list.