Locals like Crystal Bowersox and banana bread

Globe Staff

Here in the Hub of the Universe where intellectual pursuits are putatively much revered, "American Idol" runner-up Crystal Bowersox, scram bracelets, and recipes for banana bread appeared to be top of mind in the days leading up to the holiday weekend.

When it comes to reading cultural tea leaves, a review of recent Yahoo! searches by locals offers some insights about what's percolating in the collective consciousness of Area Code 617.

Lee DeWyze, a paint store clerk from Chicago, just won this year's top honors in "American Idol," the Fox Network TV talent contest, but folks in Boston didn't much care. Yahoo! searches for runner-up Bowersox jumped by 402 percent when activity this week is compared to searches from last week, but DeWyze failed to crack the latest top five list for Boston, Yahoo! said. Maybe Boston thought the wrong person won. (New York, incidentally, expressed a similar preference for Bowersox, Yahoo! said.)

Also on the top five list for fast-spiking Boston searches was "scram bracelets." A judge has just ordered actress Lindsay Lohan to wear an alcohol-monitoring bracelet following several brushes with the law. This monitoring device has been dubbed a "scram bracelet," and local interest in this anklet is running high. On the list of fast-spiking Boston searches on Yahoo!, the scram bracelet placed fourth. Nationwide, it was 10th.

Searches on some topics, such as for the Ford 150 Raptor and the TV show "Lost," ranked high both nationally and locally.

But one subject distinguished the Hub from the nation as a whole. As the holiday weekend drew nigh, folks hereabouts were boning up on recipes, Yahoo! said. Elsewhere in the country, Americans may be content to feed on traditional fare such as hamburgers and hot dogs, but not so in this culinary hotbed, where interest abounded in recipes for red velvet cake, banana bread, and pasta salad, Yahoo! said.