What are your traditional Thanksgiving foods?
When you gather around the Thanksgiving table, are you carrying on family traditions by eating the same foods that your grandmother and great-grandmother served? Or are you starting new traditions? What foods are going to be on your table this Thanksgiving?
November 1st, 2007 at 12:05 pm
We have my grandmother’s sausage stuffing. My mom upgraded it by adding mushrooms stuffed with the same stuffing and covered in mozzarella cheese. Turkey is a must, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, acorn squash, green bean casserole and Pepperidge Farm rolls.
The new tradition for me is that I’m in AA and every year we have an all day Thanksgiving feast so now I’m making my mom’s and grandmom’s dishes for people who have no where else to go. It’s what I’m most thankful for.
November 1st, 2007 at 12:18 pm
We have two Thanksgiving dinners. One with my in-laws and one with my sister and her children. My in-laws enjoy the familiarity of turkey, peas, corn, and rolls. My “other” family has several vegetarians so we have quiche (made by my sister) for the non-meat-eaters and sliced ham from the deli for the carnivores. Mashed potatoes (from a box, but still yummy especially with the extra milk and butter we add) appear at both meals, as does my famous Waldorf salad, which is a big hit. I introduced my in-laws to baked sweet potatoes instead of the canned ones they were used to, and they love them. Depending on how much energy I have I’ll also make string beans with garlic butter, or sometimes broccoli with cheese sauce. Crescent rolls (from a can) get snatched up quickly at both dinners so we always buy a lot. My mother-in-law always made a turkey but now that my husband and I prepare the meal we don’t always make one. When we don’t, we substitute the sliced honey ham. I don’t miss the mess and ickiness of cooking a turkey, but I think some of the family members miss eating it.
Here’s the biggest change I’ve introduced into the Thanksgiving celebration: the “thankful stones” ritual, which we do with both families. Before the meal we pass around a bowl of shiny pebbles and each take a handful. We then pass around the empty bowl and one by one we state something we are thankful for and place a pebble back in the bowl. The bowl gets passed around until we’ve put back all the stones. I always end up taking extra pebbles because I have so much to be thankful for!
November 1st, 2007 at 2:08 pm
My mother liked to be somewhat bohemian, and tried out different kinds of Thanksgiving meals, just to break out of the traditional turkey and stuffing mold. One of my favorites was the year we all went to the Palm Springs Indian Canyons for a picnic. It’s odd that I still remember this fondly, because at the time I was reluctant to go, thinking that we were somehow getting ripped off. Once we got there, I was caught up in the atmosphere — the weather was perfect, the picnic food was delicious and I really enjoyed climbing around on the big rocks and having fun. Later in her life my mom gave up on trying new adventures and we eventually did settle into a more traditional routine, but I am glad she at least tried to do something a little different.
November 1st, 2007 at 3:08 pm
One year our parents took the money we would have spent on a big meal and donated it to charity. We had McDonalds hamburgers instead, and I remember being really happy about this because at that time we didn’t eat much fast food.
November 1st, 2007 at 6:32 pm
My daughter Cathy is the one who does it for me and Charlotte, I’m 87 and Chorlotte is 86 so we are thankful for our daughter and son in law who provides the moola for allof this.
Kaf.foreman above more or less spells it out as to what Cathy does and most of the time it’s turkey except once when it was a large ham.
November 13th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
dlbaqua, can you share your stuffing recipe? I am vegetarian, but would love to try it with one of the good “soy sausage” products that are available. It sounds delicious!
November 15th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
I once tried a “buttery walnut” dressing and have since lost the recipe! I loved it, but most of the family missed the good old fashioned stuffing with onions, celery, etc……
We only had rutabega (sp?) on Thanksgiving, and believe me…that was enough! I love every kind of vegetable EXCEPT those in the turnip family…yuck!
I love hearing about the different things people have as traditions and hope you’ll all keep ‘em coming!
November 23rd, 2007 at 1:09 am
We just finished our Thanksgiving meal, the one for my in-laws, and it was really nice. We really had quite a variety of food–sliced honey ham, broccoli with cheese sauce, quiche that my sister made (we ate at her house for our first meal and I took home the leftover quiche), my famous Waldorf salad (well, maybe not famous but I sure like it), stuffing, mashed potatoes, baked yams, cranberry salad, peas, corn, green beans with garlic and butter sauce, and crescent rolls. For dessert we had three kinds of pie, all sugar-free since my father-in-law is diabetic. They sure tasted sweet, though. I’ll let my sister describe the eclectic meal we had at her house earlier today.
November 23rd, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Okay, at her request I will describe the eclectic meal I prepared for my sister, brother-in-law, niece, nephew and daughters. I have only owned a house for three years (prior to that I always lived in apartments) so it has been a treat to be able to host Thanksgiving but I haven’t really got a natural instinct for it, nor do I have a flair for cooking or party planning. Hence, I always put out about ten times more food than anyone wants and still find the actual meal to be a bit deficient. Yesterday I worked frantically to make sure everything was perfect and in the process I (a) overcooked the swiss cheese and onion quiche which is my signature dish (b) overcooked the yams until they were just puddles of orange goo, (c) prepared vegan brownies (in honor of my nephew, who is vegan) which turned out to be extremely oily, (d) disappointed my elder daughter by serving yeast rolls instead of crescent rolls (nobody ate more than one, a sure sign of failure in my family) and (e) realized after everyone was seated that there was not one thing I had fixed that my niece would like (she didn’t complain, of course, being a very nice young lady). The most successful dishes were delightful string beans prepared by my nephew, and a good vegetable casserole prepared by my younger daughter. My sister brought vegan food from a neighborhood Chinese restaurant for my nephew, which looked very good. Oh, and I also put out two big platters of rolls, crackers and assorted dips as appetizers which were barely touched because we didn’t really have long to wait before the meal was served. I ended the day trying to find storage for all the leftover stuff, and throwing a lot of it away. Thank goodness my sister took the extra quiche off my hands! It’s a good thing Thanksgiving is not really about food. It’s about being together with family. And that’s always wonderful.
November 23rd, 2007 at 12:40 pm
What you describe above is what my stepdaughter prepared for Charlotte and me and her brother and his wife and her specialty is green bean casserole but everything was done to a turn and we really enjoyed it and Rebekaj you are rigth it is the company that makes it enjoyable.