Are you a Pinterest addict? Pinterest, at its heart, is a collective pinboard of photos that people find interesting enough to bookmark. Lots of these visual bookmarks are food-related — and we have been noticing some repeat themes, watching the food that people bookmark and pin over and over again.
Read on to see some of our thoughts on what America wants to eat, judging from Pinterest. Do you agree? Add your own reflections on Pinterest food groups!
• Visit Pinterest: Pinterest.com
• Follow The Kitchn's Pinterest boards: The Kitchn on Pinterest.com
If you were to design a recipe index of the major food groups represented on Pinterest, it would look something like this.
The Pinterest Food Groups
- Edible rainbows - We really, really want our food to be like a rainbow. Extra points for rainbow shapes, like on these rainbow cupcakes from Monica Joy of Bits & Pieces. See also: This brilliant roundup of all the rainbow cakes on Pinterest, and rainbow Jell-O.
- Food with a marshmallow on top - Marshmallows, s'mores, and hot cocoa — or some amalgamation of all three, like these Hot Cocoa Cookies from Pip and Ebby — show up again and again. Honorable mention: These squares. And this pie.
- Peanut butter and chocolate, mashed up - Peanut butter and chocolate features heavily on Pinterest. Got a gooey up-close shot of peanut butter mashed together with chocolate? Re-pin here we come. (Bonus points here for the visual recipe presentation on these Peanut Butter Squares from The Vegan Stoner.)
- Candy, repurposed - The denizens of Pinterest have a serious sweet tooth, enough so that treats like this Candy Pie at Cookies and Cups show up over and over. Repurposed Halloween candy finds its home on Pinterest. Also noted: Malted Milk Ball Cake.
- Food that looks like something else - This is a huge category of food on Pinterest. Strawberries that look like footballs, cake pops that resemble turkey legs, cheese balls in the shape of pine cones. My current favorite has to be these panda sushi rolls.
- Casserole dishes dripping with cheese - Savory dishes are a definite minority compared to the sweet stuff on Pinterest (just try finding a salad — at least, one that isn't layered prettily in a Mason jar). But the exception is cheesy casseroles. There are lots of those. Take this tater tot casserole recipe from Blog Chef, which gets extra points for including tater tots. Also check out cheesy corn casserole, cheesy chicken enchiladas and mini mac and cheese (also of the "mini food" and "stuff baked in muffin tins" sub-sub-food groups).
- Cupcakes with tall things on top - When it comes to cupcakes, which are a supergroup on Pinterest, the taller the better, like these Gingerbread Latte Cupcakes from Bakers Royale and these O Tannenbaum cupcakes from Better Homes and Gardens. Extra credit: Fancy roses and other decorations that push cupcakes into the realm of edible art.
- Fruit (or cookies, or cupcakes) stuffed with cheesecake - Cheesecake commands a sizable audience on Pinterest, and people just love to pipe it into stuff. Take these Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries from The Sweets Life and this cookie dough cheesecake. (Cookie dough really deserves to be a runner-up Pinterest food group of its own.)
- Anything (and I mean anything) that involves Oreos - Oreos have a special place on Pinterest. They are Pinterest catnip. Check out this Oreo bark and these Oreo truffles — all examples of a theme that rolls on and on.
- The ultimate: An Oreo wrapped in cheesecake, baked inside a cupcake (with or without something tall on top) - Perhaps the quintessential Pinterest food pin: Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Cupcakes from Handle the Heat. This one has it all.
What do you think? Did I cover most of the basic Pinterest food groups? Or did I miss a couple? I couldn't fit in some other serious contenders, like sweets with bacon, mini food and food with faces.
Related: Redesigning the Food Pyramid: How Would You Do It?
(Images: Glory of Glorious Treats; Pip of Pip and Ebby; The Vegan Stoner; Monica Joy of Bits & Pieces; Shelly of Cookies and Cups; panda sushi original photo source unknown; Bobby of Blog Chef; Naomi of Bakers Royale; Better Homes and Gardens; Natalie of The Sweets Life; Katy and Abby of Blue-Eyed Bakers, Tessa of Handle the Heat)
How To Cook Fluffy, Tasty Quinoa
Perfect Summer Cocktail Recipe: Honey Bourbon Lemonade
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Elizabeth Apron fro...
100 DIY Ideas for the 3-Day Weekend
Danielle's Charming, Classic Walk-Up
You forgot Nutella - Pinterest is crazy about Nutella....
LOL--I just have a board titled "Mmmmmm"
My friends seem to tend savory - lots of cheese, potatoes and bacon.
@AmyLynn- Yes! What's up with the Nutella on Pinterest!? hahaha too funny
I totally have a nutella pin on one of my boards :)
You forgot salted caramel anything!
I feel like there's a sociological study here waiting to happen.
i love pinterest to post and find recipes. i find many of them just way over-the-top in sweet stuff piled on sweet stuff. i have tried a couple recipes i didn't care for and one no sugar oatmeal cookie that is really good. i like pinning recipes there as it's easy to find them again.
All the sweet recipes on Pinterest seriously gross me out. I mean, I like the occasional dessert, but have no interest in marshmallow fudgey clusters with rainbow sprinkles, gumdrops, and edible glitter no matter how marvelously twee they look.
I do like pinning recipes however, as a sort of edible to-do list. Most of my recipes are light and savory.
"Pinterest catnip" = pure awesome.
Surely I'm not the only one surrounded by crock-pot recipes on Pinterest?
@displaynamehasalreadybeentaken, YES! Crockpot this and crockpot that. And most of the 'recipes' just have you dump cans of stuff plus chicken in the pot and call it dinner.
Most of the food pins on Pinterest just do not interest me--I'm more of a savory kind of gal, and I like to cook from scratch. Too many shortcuts and icky ingredients (ahem, Oreos) on Pinterest.
I like Pinterest to save my own recipes to try, but I do not like a lot of what I see, especially recipes involving Pillsbury crescent rolls!
another huge category: things that can be cooked in a crockpot and require at least one "packet" or bottle of some flavor artificial flavor. (ranch dressing packet, alfredo sauce packet). personally i cook more savory, more simple stuff, and so it doesn't appeal to me, but other people seem to love it.
just like tastespotting! my daily food blog fix :)
this post is so naughty
I definitely have a collection of "food that looks like something else." I've yet to actually make something from Pinterest, but some of those ideas (reindeer pops, for instance) would be fun for parties.
Yep... Pinterest is basically 1) overly sweet desserts or cheesy casseroles, 2) workout/I will get fit plans, 3) wedding plans and 4) pictures of babies or cheesy wall art involving babies.
My recipes on Pinterest are mostly asian noodles/sauces, vegetables and cookies (I have a weakness for cookies).
How true this is! The only ones I appreciate and am guilty of are the marshmallows and peanut butter and chocolate mash up. The rest look a bit too ridiculous. But you did forget the other aspect of it. The same people are pinning tons of ideas on weight loss and getting into shape alongside their chocolate covered oreo/cookie dough/brownie bars.
Yes, exactly, LSUgrad03! Why is it that the exact same people pin these crazy, over-the-top, sugar-gasms right next to quotes about running and pictures of girls doing yoga in the mountains and plans for juice diets?? It's so confusing!
I'm not a big sugar fiend and I'm not really into making cute food. (Of course I love to see it at a shower or a party or something, but I wouldn't get any satisfaction out of making it myself.) All my food pins seem to be roasted meats of some description, which I'm sure reveals a whole other psychosis. And you won't find anything remotely related to exercise on my boards, which is probably a bad thing...
Pinterest would be a lot cooler if you could just, you know, SIGN UP and not put your name on a waiting list... to join a website... about bookmarking things.
The food on pinterest is subject to the same bias as everything else on pinterest -- it's all about what makes a good picture. The fact that people pin pictures (even where the picture is attached to a recipe) of rainbow things or ultra-decadent treats doesn't really tell us anything about what people actually eat.
That being said, I did just pin that tater tot casserole, and I intend to make and eat it on some snowy sunday this winter.
Thanks for posting this. I've been having the same thought. While I enjoy Pinterest, I'm finding that there are certain subjects - beyond sweet treats - that are over-pinned and the website is (becoming?) a bit incestual. Recently I've been trying to make an effort to *not* browse "everything" on pinterest and develop boards more personal to me. That said, I love the concept of it. I love finding new recipes online & Pinterest provides a great visual gathering place for all of them :)
@jenawithonen, I suspect part of the "cool" appeal of pinterest is that you have to be admitted instead of just signing up. (Not sour grapes, I'm a member. No food pinned, though.)
I find most of the food I see on the Everything: Food and Drink board to be awfully unhealthy and uninspiring. I use Pinterest to keep track of recipes that I find and I follow people with similar food preferences for inspiration in my cooking.
I have a pinboard called "Too Sweet to Eat" for the art-cupcakes and decadent deserts I like to look at and think about.
Preserves and meals in jars has to have its own category, related to things baked in muffin tins. Such as cornbread batter layered over chili, then baked in the oven, which would be one of my favorites.
Improbable pairings that are delicious, there's a pinboard I'd like to see become popular.
When I'm surfing the web and come across pictures of things I like, I pin it to my boards. Whether they are places I want to visit, kitchen ideas I like, recipes or just cool stuff they are for ME. If you don't like my tastes, don't follow me!
This is so true.. I like pinterest a lot, and I find the visual bookmarks to be inspiring. But if you want to look at the other pins, you have to shuffle through so much white trash!
That being said, it is what the community makes it, so I like to pin nice food from other websites to class it up a little. And follow others who do the same.
@jenawithonen I think it's still exclusive because it's basically still beta. Just started by some guy at home, now up to half a dozen staff or so, and they know there are a lot of kinks & bugs to work out. Can't open the flood gates quite yet. If you have Facebook friends who are using it, or if you don't use FB, any friend who is using it, he/she should be able to send you an invitation pretty quickly with no waiting.
the rainbow cakes. dang.
also, I think 'food that looks like pandas' should be a category unto itself.
I totally agree with this post and it's been something I've been thinking (and laughing) about for a few months now. I've determined that Pinterest is a place where we can pretend to have all the chocolate, cheesecake, oreos, and cookies we want without actually making and eating them. We all just pin things to say that we want them, but don't ever get around to making or doing anything we actually pin.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who gets slightly grossed out while viewing the food pins on pinterest. I've noticed a ton of "cake batter dip/pancakes/truffles/cookies/etc.." floating around as well which just sort of confuses me (just make a cake?) and grosses me out (most include instant cake mix).
I really try hard not to look too closely at the other food pins and instead *try* to use it as my own pinboard for recipes I'd like to try in the future. As a vegan the amount of cheese smothered/bacon wrapped/recipes with cream of ___ soup or other packaged ingredients... just yuck.
That looks about right. Ever since joining Pinterest, our meals have become much more flavorful. I never knew rainbow was a food group
Pinterest is a bit overwhelming at first on the eyes because the pictures and genres are all over the place until you start looking for things that specifically interest you. My wife found Pinterest, then got me on it. I'm a stay home dad and do the cooking so I'll be checking out the foodie section of Pinterest now, thank you. If there are any old school Italians on here we are all too familiar with Nutella. One issue we had was using the "Pin It" bookmark on the iPad because you can't drag and drop. So she had me figure it out and I wrote about how to
Sorry I submitted my comment by accident. What I was saying was my wife had me figure out how to get the Pin It bookmark on the iPad, then I realized other people had the problem so I wrote about it to help them out. It's kind of a pain, but just takes alittle time. Anyway, I love thekitchn.com site as a whole and I'm glad I found you.