Thanksgiving Traditional Foods

[Karen]

Posting over in the Thursday's thread made me wonder - what do you regard as traditional Thanksgiving foods? And what will you have this year, if you know!

Traditionally, my family growing up had (at least) turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing of two sorts, butternut or Hubbard squash (or both), turnips, rolls, and tomato aspic. Depending on who else came, there was sometimes also green peas with pearl onions, and a jello salad with cottage cheese and pineapple in it.

For dessert there was always at least four kinds of pie: apple, pumpkin, mincemeat, and pecan, sometimes others as well, served with a good sharp cheddar cheese.

When I got married and began to have Thanksgiving with Paul's family, they usually had the green bean casserole and sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top. My Italian-American friend told me it was not Thanksgiving without her grandmother's ravioli.

So what traditional or non-traditional foods do you have?

[Taz_Zoee]

Oh my, with my family we have soo much food I couldn't even begin to list it all here. But what I eat is ham, mashed potatoes, corn, gravy, rolls (my aunt makes the best home-made rolls, I hope she makes them this year), sometimes I'll have stuffing. Other foods offered are turkey (of course) one oven baked and the other deep fried, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, yams.....I can't even think of anything else.
Usually our dessert table has more to offer than the main meal. Cookies, cakes, pies, brownies, just about any dessert you could possibly think of. I always have to have a piece of my aunts chocolate cake and my moms coconut pie.

OOooh, I can't wait until Thursday!!!

[Karen]

Oh, you are right, I forgot to list cranberry sauce. We always had two kinds - the jelly and the whole berry, and some years we had a great cranberry relish made with cranberries, orange, and just a bit of sugar.

[Freedom]

Growing up with Dad's family -- Sicilian -- we had lots of courses: a salad with lots of Italian bread, made by my grandparents, a pasta (usually Ziti at the holidays as we had Spaghetti or Linguini every Sunday) and meatballs and meat, turkey with meat stuffing, candied sweet potatoes (my Mum made those!), jellied cranberry sauce, next a melon usually honeydew, then roasted chestnuts, and ending with loads of desserts: pies, wandies my Aunt Mary made (we used the Sicilian name, though), and all sorts. During the main meal we'd have wine, and water, then coffee with dessert. Whew, I'm feeling full just remembering it all!

I've never understood marshmallows with sweet potatoes, not something we ever had.

Now that it is just Dad and I, the meal is greatly toned down. Turkey, "stuffing" but not made in the bird (takes too long!), sweet potatoes with Mum's recipe, jellied cranberry sauce, green beans, roasted chestnuts. Dessert usually ends up being our supper, lol, neither of us can eat the way we did at my grandparents home!

[Roxyluvsme13]

We usually have turkey, dressing (my mom's homemade that is to DIE for. She fries it, and seriously, I could eat it every day for the rest of my life LOL), fruit salad, sometimes ham, mashed potatoes, green beans, mac and cheese, rolls, butterscotch pie...

That's all I remember right now, but those are the typical usuals I think.

[cassiesmom]

I'm with Freedom - marshmallows don't go with sweet potatoes for me. My family likes dressing baked in a casserole separately from the turkey.

My Eastern European-American family (Czech on my mom's side, Polish and Ukrainian on my dad's) eats bread dumplings and sauerkraut with our turkey instead of mashed potatoes. Here's a picture of bread dumplings. You boil the dough in a loaf, then slice the dumplings about 3/4" thick, then top them with brown gravy. They're different from potato dumplings.

[Grace]

I loved Thanksgiving growing up in Rhode Island. Probably because I was too young to be responsible for the cooking

We always started off going to Church. Then it was off to a high school football game - they are still playing those games on Thanksgiving

Next to my aunt's house for dinner. Turkey, mashed potatoes, turnip, cranberry sauces, gravy, stuffing, corn, rolls - and several kinds of pie for dessert. Think of the carb grams we consumed

Nowadays we do turkey, potatoes, peas, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, and I have a turnip casserole recipe that is really good. Just pumpkin pie for dessert.

[krazyaboutkatz]

My mom has always slow cooked the turkey overnight and she makes the stuffing and puts it inside of the turkey. She's always done this before Thanksgiving so we just heat it up the day of Thanksgiving and there's a lot less work that way.

We have Turkey,home made gravy, bread stuffing, yams, green beans, cranberry relish, rolls (sometimes with yummy brown sugar inside of them). Since we have stuffing we usually don't also have mashed potatoes but we did when we'd go to my grandparents house. We usually have pumpkin, apple or cranberry apple pie for dessert. Sometimes my mom also makes vinegar pie with any left over pie crust. It sounds nasty but it has cinnamon and sugar on it to cut the vinegar. My mom also made some cranberry loaf this year and I can't wait because it's one of my favorites. I think that's about it.

On New Year's Day we usually have pork and sauerkraut with home made mashed potatoes. I'm of German descent on both sides.

[luvofallhorses]

We have

Turkey
Stuffing, we usually cook stuffing inside of the turkey and then make another one not with the turkey
Cranberry sauce, whole berry and jellied. My mom is also making a cranberry relish like you described Karen.
Dinner rolls have to have those!
A veggie tray consisting of celery with pimento spread, carrots, cucumbers, black olives, etc.
Sweet potato casserole
Mashed Potatos
Green Bean Casserole (I am not sure if this is happening we'll see!)

I am sure I'm forgetting a few things!

For dessert:
Pumpkin Pie
Chocolate Cream Pie
Peach Jell-o salad which will probably be served with dinner.
Homemade Fudge

We also have a tray of some lunchmeat, cheese, crackers, chips and dip while the turkey is still cooking in the afternoon.

[pomtzu]

Wow Grace - did you ever bring back the memories.

Yup - growing up in RI - Thanksgiving was quite an adventure. It started out with the Warwick/Cranston H.S. football game (yup - Grace and I went to the same game and h.s.), then it was an afternoon of eating yourself silly. Sometimes Dad cooked, other times we went to my aunt's place. Being Italian, the dinner at Aunt Milly's was huge. Started with soup and antipasto salad, Italian bread, then the meatballs and spaghetti, then on to the turkey and all that traditionally goes with it. I always skipped most of the Italian because I wanted to have room for all that turkey! If you were still able to move after all of that, then on to the pies and spumoni and coffee. Of course the adults had wine with dinner, and even the kids were allowed if they wanted it. When we stayed home, Dad didn't cook all of that - none of the Italian food first - just the traditional turkey dinner.

Now that those days are long gone, I do the cooking. Usually have a cheese and cracker tray to have something to munch on while everything is cooking. Turkey, dressing, gravy, mashed potatoes, candied sweet potatoes (no marshmallows!), corn, peas, cranberry sauce, sparkling cider, pies - pumpkin and apple and sometimes mincemeat (I'm the only one that likes MM), pumpkin bread.

My 20 lb bird is defrosting in the fridge - can't wait to get it in the oven and have that wonderful smell of the roasting bird, fill the house.

[Grace]

Wow Grace - did you ever bring back the memories.

Yup - growing up in RI - Thanksgiving was quite an adventure. It started out with the Warwick/Cranston H.S. football game (yup - Grace and I went to the same game and h.s.)

What I didn't mention - my cousins went to Cranston H.S., so Thanksgiving dinner at their house was always a post-game celebration for some of us

[momcat]

Growing up, Thanksgiving was always our big family holiday at my uncle's farm upstate New York. Dinner was what my uncle grew on the farm over the summer, the only thing they bought was the turkey and that was from the local poultry farmer. Dinner was the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, various veggies, creamed onions, gravy to die for and our choice of pie - warm with ice cream. (My aunt made the ice cream). Three generations sat down for dinner, the table went from the dining room, through the hall and into the family room.

Before dinner my cousins and I always had a soccer game in the front yard. One year we totally shocked our parents by coming to dinner dressed up, my cousins in suits and me in my Sunday best. We didn't do that very often.

Those were the days.....

[pomtzu]

What I didn't mention - my cousins went to Cranston H.S., so Thanksgiving dinner at their house was always a post-game celebration for some of us

How sweet it was - but only if it was a Warwick win. Hope you all had a friendly rivalry, otherwise it wouldn't have been a pleasant occasion....

[Alysser]

That's so cool you guys went to the same high school You coulda been sitting next to each other one year.

We have Turkey, bread stuffing, stuffed mushrooms, bruschetta, rolls, mashed potatoes, gravy, apple pie, my mom's peanut butter balls (), cranberry sauce, yams (ick my dad eats those), and I think that's it.

I can't wait till thursday! I love my dysfunctional family holidays!

[happylabs]

Good topic Karen! I was just thinking of starting one.

In addition to the bird, we have traditional foods: mashed potatoes and gravy, rolls, stuffing, homemade cranberry sauce, veggies, usually corn for my brother and another veggie, maybe green beans or peas. Pumpkin pie is a must for my family and maybe a chocolate pie for those who do not care for pumpkin.

I have my menu and grocery list prepared for shopping later today but I feel like I have forgotten something.

Buddy is the only one of my 3 cats that will come out while we are eating and demand a bite or two of turkey. He is such a funny boy. He also likes a bite of dinner roll with butter on it.