I didn’t know that mac 'n cheese and greens was a black Thanksgiving thing for a large part of my life. Found out about the same time I found out green bean casserole was a Thanksgiving thing for people who aren’t very black or Puerto Rican.
My kids have come to expect that I’ll make spiced nuts, candied yams and a ham. Their farther is expected to make greens and mac 'n cheese. Of course they’ll be turkey but only because there has to be turkey. And stuffing. A traditional one and cornbread stuffing.
There can and will be other dishes but these dishes have to be made or it won’t be Thanksgiving.
Don’t care what sort of meat is served as long as there is meat. Don’t care if there are mashed potatoes. Don’t care if there are sweet potatoes, in fact I’m happy if there are none. Green bean and mushroom caserole is all yours too.
My only requirements are: Stuffing and cranberry sauce. Without those, not Thanksgiving.
Turkey, stuffing, gravy, potatoes (don’t have to be sweet. In fact, I prefer regular) and pumpkin or sweet potato pie are musts. The rest I don’t care. Oh, and cranberries of some sort. And it must be roasted turkey. That’s by far the most important for me, as I have roasted turkey on average probably once or twice a year, and this is when I expect it.
Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy. Beyond that, there need to be more dishes, but they can vary.
My wife would include cranberry sauce, and we generally have both home-made and canned, but I don’t like either, so I didn’t include it. ETA: I just asked and she also said sweet potatoes, but then said that isn’t really necessary.
Then she mentioned the pumpkin pie. Yeah, forgot about that. Need to have pumpkin pie for dessert.
Turkey of course. I definitely need my sweet potatoes. Some sort of green vegetable–gren beans are best. Cranberry sauce. Pumpkin pie (as well as other pies, but one of them has to be pumpkin). Copious wine.
And a weird one for me is dill rolls: they’re a specialty of mine that I’ve made every year for so long at Thanksgiving and Christmas that they’ve become a tradition. They’re great when they’re fresh out of the oven, plus they make fantastic sandwiches with leftover turkey.
Sweet potatoes? Yes, but just orange sweet potatoes with butter. No brown sugar, not marshmallows. That green Jell-O salad with the apples and walnuts in it: Lemon Jell-O, lime Jell-O, cottage cheese, Miracle Whip, diced red apples, diced green apples, and walnuts. Some kind of veg. Brussels sprouts are the default. And maybe some rolls, but those seem excessive.
Pies: Pecan, and pumpkin. I’ll make pecan pie, but this year we’re going to have a mixed berry pie instead of pumpkin.
sigh. Good, fresh cranberry sauce is easier to make than most other T-day staples. if it’s the one day you really cook… make it fresh and you can learn to tinker with it - things like a bit of orange zest, mint, etc.
Me, I can’t abide the stuff. Hate all sweet/sweetish dinner foods. But my sauce gets high praise every year, and I can turn it out faster than I can open a can and slice goo.
My mother was a high school teacher, and every year she would ask her students (largely suburban, but verging on inner-city) what a cranberry looked like. Many would insist it was baseball- or orange-sized, because they’d never seen anything but the ridge-y slices.
Sing it, bro. The bird cooks itself. The potatoes are a regular. The dressing is all in the prep. But the gravy… that’s the mark of the meal, and the cook.
The years when I get that first real taste, with a bit of mashed, and it’s perfect, the family has to put up with me for about ten minutes. Of course, they’re all doing it, too.
Turkey, dressing (even tho I can’t stand the stuff, it needs to be on the table), mashed potatoes and gravy, fried sweet potatoes (we never had the marshmallow-topped casserole - ugh), brussels sprouts, succotash. Pumpkin pie at least, plus others. And slices of Polish sausage before dinner.
We also never did the green bean casserole in our family. My grandmother used to do a pork roast along with the turkey. And maybe brown-and-serve rolls.
These days we have all those things, except a ham rather than a pork roast, plus lots more veggies and desserts.
Aside from the turkey–stuffing, sweet potatoes in some form, cranberry sauce, and black olives. I can do without mashed potatoes, rolls, and pumpkin pie if they are not available, but the other items are essential to the Thanksgiving dinner experience.
