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.

[redbird]

We usually have a Turkey, stuffing of course, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes which I'm not crazy about but my sister loves them and she usually does the cooking. Corn and peas for veggies, sometimes a salad but I don't eat it, I rather eat all the other stuff Of course there are pies and cake. I love Thanksgiving. There is a whole display of nuts of all kinds after we eat. I'm sure I'm leaving stuff out but I love it all.

[Catty1]

[dab_20]

We have turkey, stuffing, potatoes and gravy (from the turkey drippings), green bean casserole, rolls, sweet potatoes/yams, pumpkin pie. Sometimes other desserts like jello with fruit in it or just fruit salad with mini marshmallows.

YUM!

My mom and I work on thanksgiving so we're having ours on Saturday!

[caseysmom]

I got the two ten lb turkeys marinating, I made the sweet potatoe casserole just have to top with marshmallows and warm up tomorrow, peeled the potatoes and have in water in the fridge, made candied popcorn, made two different gravies, one vegetarian for my daughter and her best friend, one with all the gross stuff that I love (hearts, gizzards etc) I bought a really nice gravy from costco too without organ meats for those that won't want that.

I am on call this weekend so wanted to get as much done in case I do have to work from home. I got the table set, even ironed the napkins....

[sparks19]

I do have a turkey downstairs in the freezer but it's not being cooked today. I'm going to cook that on Monday. today we are going over to hubby's cousins house for the big family gathering.

She makes this ice cream dessert that is to DIE for. it's vanilla ice cream and vanilla pudding and whipped cream and then the crust is a crushed ritz cracker crust.... OMG delicious. She made it for my first ever family function and I've been hooked ever since lol whenever I walk in she says "I made your favorite dessert" and then I take it to the closet and eat the whole thing. LOL ok not really but I want to. It's SO good.

this morning we are having a bacon and egg breakfast and watching the macys thanksgiving parade and just enjoying being together before we meet up with everyone else for the feast.