Stuffing. Specifically, my wife’s stuffing, with tons of chestnuts.
Cornbread stuffing made exactly the way my mother makes it. Without that, things are all wrong.
Too bad that Thanksgiving is now permanently a holiday with my husband’s family. Oh well. My mom and I make stuffing for Christmas dinner now.
My mom made the best turkey dinner ever. People talked about it at her funeral. She was a gravy master. Nobody made gravy like my mom. I’ve given up on Thanksgiving since she died. No meal can compare so I don’t pit her dinner against whatever I’m having that day. I guess I’ve just made new traditions. I did buy a bag of Brownberry Sage and Onion stuffing and will make that (with diced onions and celery, sauteed in a stick of butter, mixed with the stuffing, moistened with more melted butter and chicken broth) at some point but not on T Day. So stuffing is the make or break food for me.
A big ol’ ham makes my t-day. The other stuff is nice, too. But it’s the ham that I really must have.
Pecan Pie
Since we’re talking stuffing, my wife made a cornbread stuffing with smoked oysters a few years back that was so good I nearly danced with joy. She has refused to make it again, so if anyone out there has a proven recipe, I would appreciate it!
Regarding the infamous green bean casserole, I made it one year entirely from scratch. As in, I made homemade cream of mushroom soup and french-fried my own onions. It took HOURS, and you know what, it wasn’t that great.
I certainly hope so! 
I’m going to say cranberry sauce, too, but of the homemade variety. I love turkey, and usually cook one several times a year, but cranberry sauce is a Thanksgiving day only thing for some reason. It’s really easy to make, so not sure why.
None of the canned stuff for me, thanks. That’s jelly, not sauce!
I guess she lost the recipe?
Seriously? You’re the one guy who doesn’t like twice baked potatoes?
I don’t know how your wife made it, but to make oyster dressing you just add canned oysters (either smoked or not) including the juice into the rest of the ingredients. I love oyster dressing but my husband doesn’t, so I don’t make it anymore.
And until this thread, I didn’t really think much about T-day, but now I am feeling the need to cook a full meal. I’m a mean t-day cook when I put my mind to it.
Gotta have:
Turkey. Dark meat. Skin.
Gravy made from the drippin’s.
Mashed potatoes made with cream and butter.
Gah! I’m hungry!
Another vote for cranberry sauce as the sine qua non of Thanksgiving dinner.
I love turkey, and I love gravy, and I really really love a great ham and slice of pineapple. But I gotta say that it ain’t thanksgiving without a slice of pumpkin pie and whip cream.
Stuffing is important because Thanksgiving is the ONLY day every year that I’ll eat stuffing.
But I also need my sweet potato casserole (with the mini marshmallows!) White trash, you say? I love it!
We have that with a bunch of garlic salt. This is making me hungry!
That’s the stuff! I think there is onion powder in there, too.
Turkey. Cooked over coals with the Weber rotisserie attachment. Nothing compares not even deep frying. Unfortunately T-giving is at my sisters where the turkey is underwhelmingly cooked in a convention oven. bleagh
I was talking about this thread with my husband, and he said that he really, really missed his mom’s dirty rice. She was Cajun and apparently dirty rice was one of her specialties on Thanksgiving. I’ve promised to scour the internet for recipes and try to recreate it for him on Christmas, when our daughter visits. Our daughter is a great cook, and more adventurous than I am. She’s also willing to eat liver and gizzards, and I am NOT.
This is going to sound lame, but it’s not Thanksgiving if there are no homemade mashed potatos. I also love english peas during Thanksgiving, especially mixed in with my mashed potatos and turkey gravy, eating it old man style.
And turkey, of course. But really, I get the turkey just as much for the leftover refrigerated turkey the next day… especially the sandwiches.
Pumpkin pie is what I look forward to.
Cornbread dressing. Or maybe pumpkin pie. Grandmother’s recipes (although truly, the dressing recipe is basically a set of guidelines, not a recipe. But no one else seems to make the pies like Grandmother’s recipe - it’s lighter than the typical custard pie, a bit lemony, and topped with meringue. Delicious!)
Turkey (as in, “Not Ham”). In fact, I even buy a turkey breast (in the past, I bought one of those frozen 3-pound breasts, but now I’m OK with a pre-cooked one from Costco) just so I can have “leftover turkey” the next day. (Prime Rib is the usual Christmas and Easter family fare.)
Also important, but not quite as much a dealberaker, is brown gravy (as opposed to “turkey gravy” - turkey gravy and potatoes just don’t go together very well). A close third is some sort of potatoes.
There’s also a “family tradition”: it’s just not Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or Easter, without the first course being tortellini in chicken broth.