Twists on tradition: ideas for new approaches to Thanksgiving fare

I don't understand the fascination with keeping things the same year after year.  I know a lot of people need the staples but I personally can't sympathize with repeating the same recipes every year.  I'll try not to go all crazy on you.  Something that I'm asked to make for Thanksgiving is my sweet potato mash.  Cube sweet potatoes and place in a pot.  Cover with water and bring to a simmer.  Add salt.  When the sweet potatoes have cooked through strain and put the potatoes back in the pot on very low heat to cook off excess water.  Throw in lots of butter, a dash of cinnamon, some grated allspice and a pinch of grated nutmeg.  Mash and serve.

Ah, koukouvagia, that's what traditions are about!

personally i do like them, and there are dishes that i only make at christmas, for instance, and their very smell makes it be a holiday

but anyway

somewhere on these forums i posted a recipe for savory pumpkin or squash turnovers, that i use as appetizers.  they;re very good.  i don;t feel like looking now.  but it's posted somewhere. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by siduri 

somewhere on these forums i posted a recipe for savory pumpkin or squash turnovers, 

Right there: 

http://www.cheftalk.com/t/62210/pumpkin-recipes-desperately-needed#post_325002
 

Thanks, FF!!!   i forgot i had posted the pictures.  I think the recipe is somewhere else on the forum. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by siduri 

Ah, koukouvagia, that's what traditions are about!

personally i do like them, and there are dishes that i only make at christmas, for instance, and their very smell makes it be a holiday

but anyway

somewhere on these forums i posted a recipe for savory pumpkin or squash turnovers, that i use as appetizers.  they;re very good.  i don;t feel like looking now.  but it's posted somewhere. 

Now that I have my own kid there might be some value to food traditions.  Suppose my son loves mommy's mushroom gravy then maybe I'll have to make it year after year.  But up until now I've never felt the need to do that.  I didn't grow up that way, my mother always experimented with recipes and while she makes dishes that I love and want to eat when I visit her they are not allocated to a certain holiday.  My husband's family is very much like that though, this holiday we eat _____ and that holiday we make ____ etc.  The recipes are always the same, it becomes predictable and I don't find any particular enjoyment in that itself.  But maybe me being an artistic person I value spontaneity and creativity.  To me holidays are about other traditions, like who we are with and what activities we do, recipe repeats don't aren't a big deal to me.  Good food will undoubtedly be part of it but my memories are rooted in the people I spend it with, not what we ate.  Sounds strange typing that in a food forum lol!

It can be dangerous to twist too hard at Thanksgiving depending on your guests. My family prefers a fairly straightforward set of dishes. You need to meet expectations.

Rather, throughout the year I cook turkeys, stuffing and the other possibilities at other times as well and those are the times I try something different. And if it's more popular, I ask about swapping that in for the holiday. Usually, they just vote to add that variation in to the menus throughout the year, just expanding the list of known favorites.

My family is pretty traditional when it comes to Thanksgiving, although we do change things up regularly for Christmas.  That being said, we aren't so tied to things that nothing ever changes.  In recent years I've been grilling the whole turkey.  You can find my recipe and article here http://www.cheftalk.com/a/how-to-grill-a-turkey-variation-on-a-thanksgiving-theme

We will also make traditional sage stuffing and then another stuffing that we experiment with.  Vegetables get changed up often as do desserts, although there is always Pumpkin Pie.  My family is also very big on relish trays for the holidays so we put a lot of effort into experimenting with pickles, relishes, chow chows, etc.  This is a fun area to explore and I find it doesn't upset Uncle Joe who always has to have the same thing every year.

I do the traditional with minor changes like I may bake the  chestnut stuffing in a 1/2 squash. Or serve cranberry orange compote inside a 1/2 scalloped orange

Quote:

Originally Posted by mister tailgate ... Koukouvagia--no sweetener in the sweet mashed?  ...

No, to me the sweet potatoes are already sweet enough.  But feel free to add what you like, it's your dish!

My preferred sweet potato treatment is to peel and cut them in disks about 3/8 of an inch thick. Season each side with a cajun/blackening mix and pan fry in some butter until cooked through. The sweet and heat balance on the potato is just right and the surface crusts up giving some texture to the finished item.

I'm hot a fan of adding extra sweetness to the sweet potato.

They're sweet enough as they are to be desert, never mind adding sugar.  I, personally, love them cooked at very high heat in the drippings of the turkey, with salt and black pepper.  Simple, wonderful.  They brown really nicely because of the sugar they contain.

I'm with you guys on the added sweeteners. Never understood why that was done. Mom used to do candied sweets in a half-orange cup, with pineapple on the bottom and melted marshmallows on top. OMG! Talk about overkill. But that's what Thanksgiving---the only holiday in American whose sole purpose is gluttony---is all about.

My favorite is to do stuffed sweet potatoes with a hazelnut topping. We're doing T-giving at some friend's this year, and that's what I'll be bringing as our contribution. 

When I do T-giving at home there's hardly anything traditional about it. But, given the diversity of how dishes are handled, the only things that must appear on a traditional table is the turkey, cranberry sauce of some kind, sweet potatoes, and, God save us, string bean casserole. And, maybe, pumpkin pie.

Literally everything else is open. So you can play with the breadstuffs, and appys, and side dishes, and desserts no end. F'rinstance, instead of simple mashed potatoes, why not make potato cakes? At last count there were 3,461 versions of cranberry sauce/compote. Pick a different one, and play with the presentation. Or how about seasonally oriented breadstuff: sweet potato buns, or pumpkin bread (I mean yeast bread, here, not the various quck breads). Try a major switch on the salad---there's no tradition I know of when it comes to that course.

Rather than being a straightjacket, I've always thought Thanksgiving was the time when a creative cook could really shine.