Breaking down SEC fans' favorite game day foods

Shari’s Berries knows a thing or two about our football tastes, and not just that we could eat several bowls of their Football Strawberries in one sitting.

The sweet treat maker recently rolled up its sleeves and kneaded its way through a batch of Google AdWords to determine “which party food is the most popular in each state.”

The company broke its research into three categories: most popular football party foods, most popular stadium foods and most popular football beer based on internet searches.

Here are some takeaways from Shari’s Berries’ research and what’s on the menu for the 11 SEC states:

• Alabama and Florida form the western and southern borders of the Fried Chicken Wing belt that extends from the arteries in the Heart of Dixie to as far north as Delaware, delightfully burning up mouths in Georgia and South Carolina along its delicious path. Curiously, New York state, alleged home to the chicken wing, prefers mozzarella sticks on game day.
• Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, in fact, all share the same tastes in food and beer, forming a collective palate along the borders of the SEC’s East and West divisions. With the Crimson Tide winning a national title and South Carolina earning just one conference win in 2015, any correlation between victories and food is quickly dismissed.
• Kentucky and Michigan are the only states that would eat their weight in potato skins every game day if you let them. Mississippi is the lone SEC state that prefers its potatoes in salad form when their teams are playing, joining the likes of only Alaska, Idaho and Illinois.
• The Lone Star State is the nation’s Lone Roasted Corn State, when it comes to party foods.
• Louisiana is the only state below the Mason Dixon line to stuff its maw with baby back ribs every game day.
• As far as stadium cuisine, burgers rule a swath of the country that extends diagonally through the SEC states from Kentucky to Louisiana. The region is bookend in the north and south by Texas’, Indiana’s and Ohio’s affinity for spilling nacho cheese on their jerseys at the stadium. Aside from Texas’ nacho love and Florida’s proclivity for garlic fries (and hopefully breath mints), the folks of the SEC states are predominantly a burgers and hot dogs kind of people.
• There are 11 states that prefer to soak their livers on game day in Stella Artois, but none of them are SEC states. In fact, the SEC might want to kick the insufferable Larry Culpepper and Dr. Pepper to the curb and, instead, add Bud Light among its sponsors. The beer is a unanimous favorite among SEC fans.