Map: The United States Of America, By Meat

This is fun. L.V. Anderson and Jess Fink of Slate started with a simple observation—Americans consume more meat per person than any other nation on earth (except Luxembourg, those gluttons), yet most of our official state foods are not meat—and have created a map that assigns a unique meat or meat-based dish to each state in the union. Some of the results are what you'd expect (Texas gets brisket, of course), some are surprising (Washington gets salami because Mario Batali's dad owns a meat shop there), and some (OK, just Maryland's) are horrifying, but the whole thing is a gas.

The map's interactive over on Slate, so click around and learn about the different foodstuffs and work yourself into a lather over the inclusion of tofu (California), lobster (Maine), and Luxembourg (as a state). Long live food maps.

[ Slate]