Deviled Eggs Lab379 recipes
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Deviled eggs around the world

379 deviled egg recipes in 7 languages: English 207, French 72, Spanish 30, German 24, Dutch 22, Italian 13 and Portuguese 11. Each is reduced to grams per egg, the same as everywhere in the lab, so a French page and an American one line up. English, the largest group, is the one the others are compared with.

The language is the page's, not the cook's country: a French page may be from Quebec, a Portuguese one from Brazil, a Dutch one from Belgium. Each language's lines are read in its own words and units, and a recipe that gives “a pinch” of salt counts a pinch.

Where they part from English

The clearest differences for each language, medians per egg. Only differences large enough to matter and unlikely to be chance are listed (how below).

  • Italian 13 recipesMost Italian recipes add meat or fish (84%, against 21% of English recipes); most use no mustard (100%, against 32%) and no mayonnaise or oil (61%, against 9%).
  • Spanish 30 recipesMost Spanish recipes add meat or fish (83%, against 21% of English recipes); most use no mustard (90%, against 32%) and no vinegar or juice (90%, against 53%).
  • Portuguese 11 recipesMost Portuguese recipes add meat or fish (81%, against 21% of English recipes); most use no mustard (90%, against 32%) and no vinegar or juice (100%, against 53%).
  • German 24 recipesGerman recipes use about half as much mayonnaise or oil as English ones (2.3 g against 6.1 g per egg); most add dairy or avocado (70%, against 29% of English recipes).
  • French 72 recipesMost French recipes use no mustard (70%, against 32% of English recipes) and no salt (95%, against 56%).
  • Dutch 22 recipesDutch recipes use 42% less mayonnaise or oil than English ones (3.5 g against 6.1 g per egg) and more dairy or avocado (3.8 g against 0 g).

Every ingredient, language by language

Grams per egg. One row a language, largest first.

middle half, and the median (the number at right; when most use none, the share that uses any)middle half of every recipesmall number after a name: recipes

Mayonnaise or oil
Dairy or avocado
Mustard
Vinegar or juice
Pickles and relish
Meat or fish
Salt

The typical batch in each language

The median of each language's recipes for every ingredient, scaled to 6 eggs. No single recipe is exactly this. Under each, the recipe nearest its language's medians.

The medians and middle halves as a table
Median and middle half per egg, by language
LanguageMayonnaise or oilDairy or avocadoMustardVinegar or juicePickles and relishMeat or fishSalt
English 2076.1 g4.6 g to 9.2 g0 g0 g to 3 g0.7 g0 g to 1.3 g0 g0 g to 0.8 g0 g0 g to 0.9 g0 g0 g to 0 g0 g0 g to 0.1 g
French 725.5 g0 g to 7.1 g0 g0 g to 4 g0 g0 g to 1 g0 g0 g to 0 g0 g0 g to 0 g0 g0 g to 11 g0 g0 g to 0 g
Spanish 306.9 g0 g to 17 g0 g0 g to 3.8 g0 g0 g to 0 g0 g0 g to 0 g0 g0 g to 4.1 g21 g13 g to 30 g0 g0 g to 0 g
German 242.3 g0 g to 5.2 g7.8 g0 g to 13 g0.8 g0.4 g to 1.3 g0 g0 g to 0 g0 g0 g to 0.6 g0 g0 g to 1.5 g0.1 g0 g to 0.1 g
Dutch 223.5 g0.3 g to 5.3 g3.8 g0 g to 17 g0 g0 g to 1.3 g0 g0 g to 0 g0 g0 g to 0 g0 g0 g to 0 g0 g0 g to 0 g
Italian 130 g0 g to 2.8 g0 g0 g to 5 g0 g0 g to 0 g0 g0 g to 0 g0.7 g0 g to 2.9 g23 g18 g to 25 g0 g0 g to 0 g
Portuguese 119.2 g4.1 g to 12 g0 g0 g to 1.2 g0 g0 g to 0 g0 g0 g to 0 g0 g0 g to 0 g17 g3.2 g to 30 g0 g0 g to 0 g

How the comparison works

A language gets a row with at least 8 recipes. Each is compared with the English recipes on every ingredient, and a difference is listed only when it clears two bars: the medians sit at least a third of the middle half of all recipes apart (about half a standard deviation, a medium effect), and a rank test puts the gap at 3 standard errors or more, so a language with few recipes needs a large difference. For an ingredient many recipes skip, the share using none counts too: at least 25 points apart, at the same 3 standard errors.

Every ingredient is tested for every language, a few dozen tests per lab, which is why the bar is higher than the usual two standard errors. Salt is listed last when it differs: many recipes give it as a pinch or leave it to taste. Shares and “more than” percentages are rounded down, so none is an overstatement.

These are what recipe writers in each language do, not rules of each country's cooking. A language with 8 to 20 recipes may come mostly from a few sites; each recipe page names its source.