Store-bought clam chowder. In The Mad Feast by Matthew Gavin Frank, a book of freewheeling essays on the signature dishes of all 50 states, clam chowder is associated with two states, not one: Connecticut and Rhode Island. And that’s if you don’t count New Hampshire, where corn chowder is the meal of choice. In Rhode Island, their clam chowder is supposed to be clear like seawater: It “shuns the tomato and the cream, the red and the white, in favor of the briny astringency of pure clam broth.” In Connecticut, it’s made with quahog clams from Cape Cod and uses heavy cream to impart “a thin consistency and a grayish color.” As someone without any New England affiliations, these Yankee distinctions mean little to me. I just want a bowl of protein and potatoes that I don’t have to think about.

(Photo: Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, winter.)

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