I know we’ve had threads like this, but it’s been a while, so let’s give it a shot.
When I was a kid. my grandmother never had green bean casserole or sweet potatoes with marshmallows. But she did have succotash (corn with lima beans) and what I refer to as sweet potato hockey pucks. She’d boil the sweet potatoes, slice them about 3/4" thick, then fry them till they were almost black. My sister does that to this day. No thanks.
My MIL always had jello and cottage cheese “salad” and what our daughter calls “green stuff” (pistachio pudding, crushed pineapple, cool whip, mini marshmallows) - not as dessert but as a side dish. Any veggies she had were waaaaaay over-boiled.
I’ve only done dinner myself maybe 5 times, since we always went to a relative’s dinner. But this year, it’s a small gathering at our house. (The in-laws are all gone and my family lives more than 2 hours away - we’ll wait to see them next month.) As a result, I have no traditions of my own, so we’ll see what I decided to cook.
There are a raft of things I’ve read about that I’d like to try someday- oyster stuffing, other sorts of birds, prime rib, and other semi or non-traditional Thanksgiving dishes.
Problem is, everyone else especially my wife’s family is VERY insistent on the traditional stuff. So much so, that it’s almost fetishistic. Like they have to have the same exact meal every single year, following the same recipes, etc…
Took over doing it when I hit 12 [with Mom’s help, but still doing the vast majority of prep and cooking]
Turkey [change is dressing cooked outside the bird vice stuffing inside the bird]
Mashed potatoes, green beans almandine [though we stopped with the almonds because roomie is allergic to nuts, so we tend to do the green beans and bacon saute] tossed salad with choice of dressings, sourdough dinner rolls - both canned cranberry jelly and cranberry sauce homemade.
dessert tends to be an apple pie, a pumpkin pie and choice of ice cream flavors
coffee, tea, whatever people want to actually drink =)
Never the mushroom soup crap [allergic to shrooms] detest yam marshmallow casserole - to jaw wrenchingly sweet - have done backed sweet potatoes with cinnamon butter though, if people bring stuff potluck, it gets put on the buffet =)
Growing up, we usually had turkey, a home made cranberry sauce, stuffing, something like the green bean almondine @aruvqan_myers mentioned or other cooked green, mashed potatoes, but also whatever other interesting recipes my mom might have wanted to try. We never (that I can recall) did the mid-century green bean casserole, or sweet potatoes & marshmallow.
I do love stuffing, and if I had to pick one “must have” item for Thanksgiving it’s a good stuffing- rich, savory, salty, herbaceous. Paired with a tart cranberry sauce… yum! Turkey is great (or ham, or whatever), but I don’t really care about eating it that much. I do love how the house smells while it’s cooking.
This year for reasons we’re going to Montreal (a short drive) and eating a fancy meal out that is not Thanksgiving-themed at all. I may try to make a pecan pie later that weekend at the request of my spouse.
Following this thread as I’ve always been envious of thanksgiving traditions, not being American myself. I would also love to see pictures of your spreads!
Lots of mentions of mashed potatoes - anyone favour roast potatoes, or is that not The Done Thing? And do you serve it with turkey gravy or is it a drier affair?
I’m not all that picky with my food, but I enjoy a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. For my family that involved a main dish of oven roasted turkey with both stuffing and dressing. Sides included green bean casserole, a broccoli rice casserole, mashed potatoes, corn, cranberry sauce, and rolls. And of course lots of gravy and butter. Desert was an assortment of pies including pecan, pumpkin, and some sort of fruit pie (cherry, peach, blueberry, etc.). One year, an older cousin decided to attempt a turkey fried in peanut oil. It turned out well, and going forward that was added to the Thanksgiving menu. These days we go out to a Thanksgiving brunch, which has all sorts of food available, but I stick with what was traditional in my family when I was a child.
I’ve never had other birds other than turkey or chicken. No duck, no goose, no quail, etc. I’ve never had beef or seafood. I’ve never had potatoes prepared any way other than mashed. I’ve never had any kind of gelatin based desert. I’ve never had alcohol with the Thanksgiving meal, whether beer, wine, or spirits. It’s just never been a tradition in my family, either as a child or today.
I don’t mind some different things on the table, especially if I’m a guest, which is happening more in recent years. However: oysters don’t belong anywhere near stuffing (or anywhere else, in my personal opinion). My wife makes a nice cranberry sauce that is a must-have. I prefer my gravy to other people’s attempts at it. And I prefer my sausage stuffing. I will not eat sweet potatoes that have been ruined with that marshmallow goop.
Mashed with gravy is very traditional, so I’d say that’s what most Americans have. I love roasted potatoes, too, but at Thanksgiving, only mashed will do.
I grew up in a dysfunctional home, and some of that dysfunction included terrible food preparation on purpose. But the one meal my birth mother would prepare well was a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. I came to really look forward to it and enjoy it to the fullest.
When I was able to run my own life, I was determined to create better memories for my family and evolve good Thanksgiving memories and meal traditions. I became the family steward of Thanksgiving dinners. Made them many times, evolved a bunch of traditional foods and can make the meal in my sleep. It always included the following: Roasted turkey, bread dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, rolls, Brussels sprouts finished in dill with brown butter, carrots with garlic, dill and orange, red cabbage cooked with molasses, clove and juniper, corn fritters, cranberry sauce and crudite. Dessert always featured pumpkin and pecan pies. Everything homemade. I would make other special dishes on request, like the yams with marshmallows or green bean casserole. Those weren’t for me, though.
Even now, though I’m on my own and prefer a solo Thanksgiving, I do a lot of it. I roast a chicken instead of a turkey, and I still do the dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, rolls, Brussels sprouts and cranberry sauce, along with a pumpkin pie. At least dinner is covered for a few days after.
We never had green bean casserole or the sweet potatoes with marshmallows. My mom tried to get me to make the green bean casserole a couple years ago…she seems to think we always had it? I dunno, I told her it doesn’t look good to me and I wasn’t going to make it.
I think the only thing my family insists on every year is pumpkin pie.
A big ol’ ham is my must-have. And deviled eggs. This year, my sister is mobility-impaired, so I will have to do the leg-work in the kitchen. And that means probably a turkey breast instead of a full bird. Fine by me. But I will try see if they want anything I can make, like Creole Chicken and dirty rice or jambalaya. I suppose I will be able to mix up a pan of stuffing or some kind of green bean dish with her direction. I just wonder if we will have any guests since it’s going to be Fakesgiving (that is, happening next week instead of the official holiday). I actually hope not.
Growing up, we always had baked sweet potatoes as in just like baked potatoes - you baked them in the skin. My wife had only had the Boil-em-Candy-em-Add-Marshmalows type. We lived 1.5 miles apart.
And the recipe I have for the pistachio pudding - pineapple stuff is called Watergate Salad.
My mother had a recipe for a jello salad that included grapes, ground fresh cranberries, celary, and some other things. Made that once and brought to my future in-laws for Thanksgiving. My future MIL looked at it and said “That looks like dog barf!” Been known as “Dog Barf Salad” ever since.
We’ve done roasted potatoes with turkey et al (and, yes, I “et all”!). Putting gravy on it is your choice, but if done right, it don’t need gravy.
I’ve been the primary cook for Thanksgiving dinner nigh onto forever (at least since my MIL passed away). Always a turkey; always another protean (for people who don’t like turkey). I make stuffing as God intended - in the bird. Makes the carcass taste better for soup. We always have roasted brussels sprouts and/or asparagus (my SIL is a picky eater, but those are the two vegetables she likes!). I make the candied yams because that’s what my in-laws expect, but I always also bake one sweet potato because that’s how I like them. My wife’s uncle used to come to Thanksgiving. He was diabetic, and was amazed at the concept of baked sweet potato. Worked well for him! The in-laws bring over a couple of sides (hash brown casserole, baked mac and cheese) and a desert (usually brownie-ish); I make two pies - Pecan (I’ve got a recipe for a pecan pie with a cream-cheese layer; cuts out some of the cloying sweetness in a typical pecan pie) and either fruit or pumpkin (as in take a pumpkin, cut up,…); I also make gooey butter cake. Oh, and fresh raw veggies for before along with bread and dill dip (my wife’s family recipe). Then after all of that, no one eats again for 3 days.
Although I do make turkey soup. For a while, my FIL liked deep-frying turkeys. The carcass was absolutely useless for soup. No flavor to it. I smoke turkeys occasionally, and those carcasses make WONDERFUL soup! There’s still something about the turkey baking for hours with the stuffing that makes the soup better.
If your objection is the boiled-sugared-marshmallowed stuff, I agree. Try just baking a sweet potato. Once done, take out of skin. Add butter. That’s it. You can add cinamon-sugar, but I’m guessing not sweet enough isn’t your problem.
Or leave it in the skin. The skin on ordinary white potatoes or sweet potatoes is just great to eat.
But yeah, my complaint about the stereotypical T-day feast is that, by pound, it’s about 75% simple carbs, half of which are sugar added to nearly every dish. Uggh!
In terms of glycemic reaction, we’d all do as well to settle at the table with a full-sized 2-layer fully frosted birthday cake as our entrée; one whole cake per person. Be sure to clean your plate. No wonder everyone (except the hyper children) is falling asleep 30 minutes later.
Oh, the skin on a baked potato is the best part! I thought the skins on a sweet potato were kinda nasty. Then again, I can’t say that I’ve ever tried one; my mother would peel the sweet potato, so I assumed that’s what you were supposed to do. Guess I’ll try it this year!
I was diagnosed this last spring with type-2 diabetes, so this Thanksgiving will be interesting. Yeah, I agree with you - too many of the stereotypical dishes are sugar-coated sugar; we as Ugly Americans™ would do better with less white sugar. That’s one of the good things about baked sweet potatoes - yes, it’s a carb, but has more flavor and nutrition than a regular baked potato.
@Dr.Winston_OBoogie
I was forced to eat a sweet potato in Catholic grade school when I was 6 years old. One bite induced violent vomiting which filled my little cafeteria tray divisions.
The emotional and physical trauma from that event impacted me from ever eating yams or sweet potatoes again.