[amazingrace]

If it ain't broke...don't fix it!

I've been making Thanksgiving dinner for the past 45 years. The only time anyone complained was when I decided not to make a certain dish, or if I tinkered with the recipe. The family expects at least 2 turkeys. One for dinner, the other(s) for the leftovers. Everyone looks forward to enjoying the time-honored recipes...no "gourmet specialties" or "designer foods"...just everything the way it's always been. I have the rest of the year to "impress?" people with new or different offering. But we don't mess with Thanksgiving.

[MaryB]

Other than tweaking the stuffing recipe that I got from my mother it is traditional turkey, stuffing, gravy, corn, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, cranberry.

[teamfat]

I've messed with Thanksgiving. Well, sort of. My wife's family, as I've mentioned before, is not very adventurous when it comes to food. Both Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners usually involved dry, overcooked turkey, canned veggies, instant potatoes and such.

It has been a long, slow process [ we celebrated our 22nd anniversary a bit over a month ago ] but things are improving. Real mashed potatoes, fresh veggies and such. Last year at her sister's house I did the turkey for T-Day, with a garlic herb butter rubbed under the skin, the cavity filled with rosemary sprigs, citrus and more garlic. Not too much though, I don't want to scare them! They liked the stuffing done outside the bird with a turkey stock, baked in a pan to provide lots of nice, crispy crust to go with the savory softness.

This year Christmas dinner is at our house. Still over two months away, but I'm already starting to fret and fuss about it. I'm thinking that in addition to the turkey I want to put a beef rib roast into the mix ...


mjb.

[greyeaglem]

This thread reminds me of how my brother-in-law and I "messed" with T-day. My mother traditionally cooked whole fresh cranberries with sugar for the cranberry side. Sometimes she'd make cranberry relish with oranges because my sister liked it. my brother-in-law and I, rubes that we are, like the jellied cranberries in a can. (Stop laughing, I can hear you way over here.) My mother, although she's mellowed some, was a person who if you didn't like the same things she did, considered you to be the equivalent of a communist. She flat out refused to get us our cranberries, so we brought our own. She wouldn't let us put them on the table, we had to keep them in the kitchen. Eventually she gave up and let us have them on the table. Sort of. While everything else was presented on Lenox china and lead crystal, our poor cranberries languished in a Tupperware bowl. But at least they were on the table. Now we have T-day at my brother-in-law's house. Lenox china gave way to chinette as no one wants to do all the dishes. Everything else comes to the table in whatever we can fit it in. Except our jellied cranberries. They are presented on a long polished chrome tray with gold handles in all their perfectly sliced glory. We won the great cranberry war.

[Pete]

THIS IS NOT SOMETHING TO MESS WITH. THIS IS AMERICAN

Mike I both agree and disagree with this statement. I agree that I am a traditionalist then it comes to T-Day, meaning I follow my families traditions, but really the traditions do not go that far back. Thanksgiving has only been observed since 1863 when President Lincoln started the tradition, but it did not become a federal holiday until 1941. As far as tradition goes, I imagine our modern, "traditional" Thanksgiving is a far cry from what the pilgrims ate on that first "Thanksgiving."

[KYHeirloomer]

>observed since 1863 when President Lincoln started the tradition,<

A common error, Pete.

Lincoln's Thanksgiving Day proclamation did, indeed, lead to it becoming an annual, national holiday. But the fact is, George Washington had issued a similar proclamation, naming November 26 of that year as the date.

In both cases, however, Thanksgiving Day was not a day of feasting and celebration. It was a day of prayers and spirituality.

The main imputus to Thanksgiving as we know it came from FDR, who, among other things, promoted the idea of a turkey dinner as part of his own economic stimulus package. It was a way of helping out the turkey farmers, who were not doing well at all.

BTW, despite what we learned in school, it is doubtful that wild turkey was part of the harvest festival held by the pilgrims. Waterfowl were the more likely birds served.

And, while we're talking about "traditional" Thanksgiving Day foods, the ubiquitous green bean casserole was invented in the '50 by Campbells, as part of their constant barrage of ways to use their condensed soups as a gourmet ingredient.

>I imagine our modern, "traditional" Thanksgiving is a far cry from what the pilgrims ate on that first "Thanksgiving." <

It is. But you don't have to imagine it, Pete. That meal is fairly well documented.

Among the things they didn't have was cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie (there was no sugar available to make them). Pumpkin was certainly part of that meal (which was more a state dinner than a tranksgiving celebration), but not in the form of pies or sweet puddings.

Waterfowl and upland birds were on the menu. Turkey is not specified; so, while possible, food historians consider it unlikely. Although Winthrop had detailed four hunters to go into the woods specifically to harvest provisions for that meal, it's more than likely they brought back venison rather than wild turkey.

Ovens hadn't been constructed yet, which means fowl was either stewed or spit-roasted; thus, no dressing (stuffing).

Potatoes---both Irish and sweet---were non-existent. Irish potatoes had not yet migrated to North America, and sweet potatoes were a product of the Carribean, with whom trade had not yet been established.

And, most assuredly, there was no green bean casserole!

[MikeLM]

Interesting, the intensity of responses this thread has evoked. Lot of fun.

KYH - thanks a lot for the historical background; I enjoyed it very much.

Pete - as far as my family - and my wife's - goes, there is plenty enough background to be traditional! You should try adding sliced Brazil nuts to your dressing (maybe not if your tradition uses oysters) and maybe make a little adjustment to your tradition.

Mike

[Pete]

You should try adding sliced Brazil nuts to your dressing (maybe not if your tradition uses oysters) and maybe make a little adjustment to your tradition.

Nobody touches my sage stuffing, at Thanksgiving!!!! My grandfather, on my Dad's side was big into oyster dressing. No one else really cared for it, so there was always a small dish of oyster dressing sitting along side the big dish of sage stuffing.

Actually, while I prefer simple sage dressing on T-Day, I don't mind changing it up every once in awhile, though that is what I consider Christmas for since dressing usually makes an appearance there also.

And while I might be a "traditionalist" when it comes to T-Day, I am not a die hard fanatic about it. In fact, one year, after working the restaurant for most of the day on T-day my wife and I went out to eat. Having seen my fill of turkey and all the trimmings we opted for Benihana's for our Thanksgiving dinner!

[Suzanne]

In response to DC Sunshine and bughut: not all Americans like supersweetened vegetables! In fact, some of us can't fathom the "too much of a good thing"-ness of candied sweet potatoes or casseroles with marshmallows on top. Someone in the family introduced a mashed sweet potato casserole topped with what's basically a streusel -- nice texture contrast, but still waaaaaaaaaay too sweet for me. The sweet potatoes with coconut milk I mentioned upthread had Asian junk-food candied lemon (from Aji Ichiban) added -- which is much more lemon than candy, so it made a nice tart contrast.

As for what's "traditional" -- I'll bet that in many families it doesn't go back much more than one or two generations, and that most families personalize the feast more than they realize. While part of the whole idea of T-Day is to blend into the "American way of doing things" (or "Canadian" for that matter), many still find comfort in keeping something their family had in the "old country," wherever that was, however long ago.

[Suzanne]

One other thought from the iconoclast: when I was in culinary school, I was assigned the turkey for our T-Day buffet. I boned it out and stuffed it with a stuffing that started the usual bread-and-herbs way, but also had cranberries and chorizo for the sausage. So it ended up like a ballotine. I loved it -- and I got a good grade, too.

In fact, I loved it so much that I did pretty much the same thing that year at my in-laws, although I used lots of mushrooms instead of sausage. They were polite, and everybody ate plenty, but I think they expected the usual whole bird. Oh well.

But one of the neatest things is to borrow from others' traditions, I think. Like having PA Dutch 7 sweets and 7 sours alongside your usual standard stuff. Or prosciutto bread instead of dinner rolls. Just a little change-up can make what may have become a boring meal into something a lot more fun (at least for the cook!).

BTW: This year my pescatarian friend suggest we do Jamaican or Mexican, like jerk fish or chiles rellenos. Sounds good to me -- but I still might have succotash on the side.

[MaryB]

Leave my sweet potatoes in caramel sauce with marshmallows alone!! Once a year I like it that way.

[boar_d_laze]

The "History of Thanksgiving" part of this thread is a little garbled. There was something of a tradtion of Thanksgiving -- with a meal much like the one we now have -- by the early nineteenth century. In the mid 1820s a fairly influential magazine editor named Sarah Josepha Hale started camaigning for a national day of Thanksgiving based on the Plymouth Colony tradition.

In 1863, Lincoln declared the third Thursday in November as a National Day of Thanksgiving, partly as a morale booster during the dark days of the war, partly as a way to unify the country, and partly (no doubt) for all the reasons advocated by Hale. But had the tradition, or one much like it, not been common, Lincoln would not have had much effect. He made it more popular, yes. But mostly he standardized a date.

In 1939, Roosevelt changed the date to the fourth Thursday of November -- additionally, federal business was suspended for the day (and later for the weekend) giving the holiday another dimension.

As for the menu -- that's been around for a couple of hundred years too. Not that different ethnicities didn't add some traditions, but the turkey - pumpkin thing has been around since dirt. Always a good, traditional choice, Turkey got a substantial boost in the late eighteenth century from Franklin, and became THE TRADITION in 1854 when Governor Bradford's (Plymouth) papers were recovered from the Brits.

In case you cared,
BDL

[KirstenS]

I agree with everyone who says Thanksgiving dinner is nothing to mess with. Stuffing, my favorite and even better the next day cold, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberries (nothing fancy, straight from the can and sliced), turkey and gravy and sweet potatoes. I am not a sweet person. I would much rather have the savory than the sweet but my mom's sweet potatoes......forget about it. Topped with brown sugar, butter and marshmellows burnt but not too on the dark side. I look forward to the appetizers too. Spinach dip, pizza puffs, and pigs in a blanket.

[Pete]

When I say that I am a "don't mess with it" kind of person, I'm talking about me, personally. I have friends from many different backgrounds and they celebrate T-Day with foods they are familiar with. I am all fine with that. I am also perfectly fine with others wanting to change it up a bit or a lot. Personally, I like our family traditions and usually about mid October as the weather starts to turn colder, I start looking forward to our Thanksgiving feast. I never find it boring, even when cooking it, nor do I find it repetitive since we only have some of these foods once or twice a year. For me there is something comforting in having the same meal every year. But again, this is my personal preference. But I am also easy going enough that if I were at someone else's house for T-day I would be thrilled with whatever they served for dinner.

[OregonYeti]

Originally Posted by Suzanne

As for what's "traditional" -- I'll bet that in many families it doesn't go back much more than one or two generations, and that most families personalize the feast more than they realize.

I would be really surprised to find 2 families' Thanksgiving dinner almost exactly the same. Even turkey and dressing, which are almost universal--almost--there are so many different family-traditional ways to make them. I stick to my "traditional" ways for the things I consider essential.

When I cook a ham, I make it the way my mom makes it. On the fatty side, I cut through the the fat in a criss-cross pattern, press brown sugar onto it, and stick a whole clove into each square (each square being about 3/4"). Then I bake it. That's my "traditional", but not everybody's. I like it so much this way that I almost always cook it like that, whatever time of year.