Thanksgiving: Food for thought | Life
In honor of Thanksgiving, the Extra Staff has decided to join you in some of our favorite holiday dishes – metaphorically speaking, of course.
Turkey and stuffing
Things could have worked so much differently for turkeys if the Founding Fathers had just listened to Benjamin Franklin. "[A] much more respectable Bird" than the bald eagle, he wrote to his daughter. No, Franklin never suggested that the turkey became our national bird, contrary to a popular myth, but he did praise the turkey's character.
"Franklin is still, though a little vain & silly, a bird of courage." , "And would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his farm yard with a red coat on."
Now, what patriotic American could possibly eat a bird like that? Ongeveer 250 miljoen van ons, als het uitkomt. Ifølge National Turkey Federation, 88 percent of Americans will celebrate Turkey this Thanksgiving day. And 97 percent of those who do will complain that the bird is too dry. Who says that Americans can not agree on anything these days?
OK, I made that last percentage up. But pity the poor turkey. Mennesker vil roast du og brenne deg, fry, baste og røyke deg, eller humiliate deg ved å lage mat i en plastikpose eller med et øl kan du kaste i din u-know-where og stadig betragte dig ikke mere end et køretøj til gravy consumption. Turkeys deserve more respect than that.
As unified as we might be when it comes to serving turkey at Thanksgiving, Americans are far more divided when it comes to stuffing. First of all, many of us do not even call it stuffing, we call it dressing. That might be a Southern thing, because dressing sounds more honorable and dignified than stuffing. Some people say it's a literal definition – you stuff a bird with stuffing, you bake dressing in a dish. Others say the opposite is correct, that you can bake stuffing in a pan and stuff a bird with dressing. Some people use white bread, and others say it must be cornbread.
My wife grew up in a family that spent Thanksgiving eve tearing up a loaf of white bread to be stuffed in a bird. So they called it stuffing. My mother preferred baking a pan of Pepperidge Farms crumbs mixed with various spices and turkey juices. I think we called that dressing. These days, my family makes a homemade recipe in a baking dish that's so delicious I could eat seven plates of it and be satisfied with this Thanksgiving.
This year, I could just shape my stuffing recipe into the form of a turkey and bake it in the oven, just so I can have the effect of having both turkey and stuffing, while preserving the dignity of such an honorable bird. I think ol 'Ben would approve.
– Ralph Berrier Jr.
Cheese Casserole with Broccoli, Macaroni and Ham
Broccoli casserole
One item that was not on the buffet table at my family's Thanksgiving get-together this year was broccoli casserole. Det var en bit av en overraskelse, men jeg var ikke klar til at klage, særlig siden jeg ikke havde noe til festen.
Det kom meg til å tenke at jeg kanskje skulle være den eneste til å lage broccoli casserole. I've done deviled eggs before (Olives and Tabasco Sauce Version), but I never tried what has been my favorite casserole year after year.
In a way, it does not make sense that I like it so much, because I just really do not enjoy broccoli. Det har to være chopped up som om du er i overkill, så blandet med ost eller noget sort, eller jeg er virkelig ikke interesseret. And when it comes to cheese, I mean Velveeta.
People will sometimes call me a foodie, and I think that's funny, because I like Velveeta. I mean, that's not even actually food, right? Men på de riktige ting, det er den eneste måten å gå, i min mening. For example, broccoli casserole. And you've got to have crumbled Ritz crackers on there, too, right? If that's a low-rent version, then I'm a low-rent guy, and not ashamed.
That does not mean I'm insensitive. If I'm making it for others, I have to take in consideration that most people probably do not want to get involved with cheese "product." So I took to the web to find some suitable replacements, and I think I might just enjoy some of these.
Here are some cheesy contenders:
1. A creamy cheese sauce that is "a roux of flour, butter and milk", and with crushed butter crackers (Andy Griffith said it best: "Everything's better when it's sitting on a ritz"). Source: yellowblissroad.com/cheesy-broccoli-casserole
2. How about a béchamel sauce for your broccoli casserole? I like this idea a lot. Such a recipe adds cayenne pepper, mustard powder, ground or grated nutmeg, salt, pepper and "mature" cheddar cheese (not the smart-alecky kind from the commercials). I found a recipe at simply-delicious-food.com/make-bechamel-sauce-cheese-sauce. Maybe you would go with Captain's Wafers on that one?
3. Fountainavenuekitchen.com has a list of cheeses that melt well – American (including Cooper Sharp), Cheddar, Swiss, Colby, Fontina, Gouda, Gruyère, Havarti, Monterey Jack, and Muenster. Blue, Brie and Camembert are good options if you remove the rind first. The following are not good melters – feta, cotija, queso fresco, ricotta, halloumi, and creamy goat.
All of this seems like a good bit of thinking and work. Hvis du er opptatt eller lat, det betyr en gang eller to-a-år gå-til for familien sammenkomster. En als decadent als ze verschijnen, dat is waarschijnlijk over de grens voor gezond verbruik. But holidays are stressful enough without having to worry about calories – so enjoy.
– Tad Dickens
Pumpkin pie
"Pie, pie, me oh my. Nothing tastes sweet, wet, salty and dry – all at once. Oh well it's pie. "
Anytime someone serves me a piece of pie, I immediately start singing Andie MacDowell's song from the 1996 movie" Michael. "OK, well actually, my simplified version sounds more like" Pie, pie , I love pie, "slightly misremembered from the original but bearing the same sentiment. Me oh my, that's pie.
For my family, pie is not just the final to Thanksgiving dinner. We'll bring out the dessert for any occasion, big or small. Og hver familiemedlem har en favorit som alltid gør meg tænker på dem. My husband likes key lime pie, Dad likes Boston creme (which according to the American Pie Council is a cake, not a pie), and Mom likes razzleberry (probably because of "Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol" from the '60s). As for me, I'll eat just about any kind of pie, though apple pie with a piece of cheese on top always makes my taste buds sing.
"Apple! Pumpkin! Minced and wet bottom! Come to your place every day if you got them! "
So with all those great pies out there, why does pumpkin pie get all the love on Thanksgiving?
Although pumpkin pie was probably not part of the first Thanksgiving feast in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the squash was most likely served in some form. The dessert kan have been introduced to the holiday table as early as 1623, but it was not until the 18th century that it became a staple. In fact, legend has it that the town of Colchester, Connecticut, postponed its 1705 Thanksgiving for a week because they could not make pumpkin pie due to a molasses shortage. (According to history.com, colonists often used molasses instead of sugar because it was cheaper.)
According to history.com, colonists used molasses instead of sugar.
According to history.com to a 2014 Wichita Eagle article, both pies pretty much use the same ingredients (like cinnamon and nutmeg), but their consistency is slightly different.
Although pumpkin pie has grown popular in New England, Sweet potato pie has historical links to the south, partly because sweet potatoes were easier to grow here than pumpkins. Enslaved African-Americans often cooked sweet potatoes pie for plantation households, eventually embracing the dessert for themselves after improved stoves and processed ingredients became more accessible.
In 2015, singer Patti LaBelle created a sensation when she began marketing her sweet potato pies at Wal-Mart; people could not get enough of them. The recipe can be found online with a quick internet search.
After you've moved on to sweet potato pie, just think of the possibilities. Apple! Pecan! Chess! Blueberry!
"Pie, me oh my, I love pie."
– Suzanne Miller
Dinner rolls
In my family, Thanksgiving dinner had many parts. My part was the rolls. I started my training as a bread guru at the young age of 5, and since then I have learned many things. For example, not everyone is going to love the flaky honey-flavored rolls – but you can never go wrong with Pillsbury crescent rolls.
My important task started one holiday when my mom realized that I was bored while everyone else was doing something on Thanksgiving. She was cooking, my father was watching the big game, and my sister was watching the parade. So she brought me over to the fridge, opened one of the drawers and told me to pick a package of rolls.
At the time, I had no idea what I was doing, but I quickly grabbed two of the packages. One had that cute little dough boy smiling with his dimples, and the other was wrapped in plastic and bordered in orange. Recognizing the dough boy from television, I picked his package up and gave it to my mom. She then poked me in my tummy, and I let loose a giggle of delight.
She then showed me how to spray the cooking pan, roll the triangular pieces of dough into crescents and how to curve them and place them ready to bake . We did not put them in the oven until dinner was almost ready, but in meantime she let me set the temperature and the timer. Later, I was tickled pink when she and my father both complimented my "baking" skills. My sister was begrudgingly agreed.
In later years, we tried Hawaiian rolls, French baguette, biscuits and even one year. I was allowed to make cinnamon rolls for dessert even though there was apple pie. Så nu som en voksen Jeg vet når jeg går til min første Thanksgiving middag i fremtiden at jeg har rollene på låsen ned. The turkey on the other hand …
– Alexis Helms
Cranberry Sauce
In my household, I really mean my mother's household, I recall cranberry sauce appearing in two distinct forms. [19659007] First, the red jellied sauce that comes from a can, has its shape when removed from said can, and has a flavor and texture not far removed from a Jell-O treat.
Second, a somewhat crunchy, homemade relish , that also contains bits of pineapple and navel orange, which I never knew until I called my mom, Shonna Allen, and asked her about the recipe. When she was a child growing up in Minnesota, her mother made the same relish, but it's not a special family recipe. The copy in mom's recipe box came from a pineapple can label.
In my memories, our family has eaten the jellied sauce and the relish on alternating Thanksgivings. Mom assures me I'm wrong about that: She serves the sauce at Thanksgiving dinner and the relish at Christmas dinner. I defer two her expertise.
She also told me there's a third cranberry dish she makes using just the berries mixed with sugar that I would be familiar with if I ate dinner at her house more often.
None of this kommer nært til at adressere spørsmålet om hvorfor cranberries får tjent for Thanksgiving i første omgang. If my mom puts it, "It's always been."
Mom is not wrong, at least when it comes to the history of the United States. Cranberries are uniquely American, native to the northeastern U.S. (selv om disse dagene er størstedelen af vores forsyning er vokst i Wisconsin).
English author John Josselyn, in his 1671 travelogue "New England's Rarities," mentions the "New England's Rarities," mentions the " Cran Berry or Bear Berry, "observing that" the Indians and English use them much, boiling them with sugar for sauce to eat with their meat. "Serving cranberries with game meats like turkey became as American a thing as … well, growing cranberries in the first place.
When it came to cementing cranberries as a part of a unique American tradition, it could not hurt that they were a favorite of Thomas Jefferson, who ordered them by the keg when he was president.
Modernized harvesting methods introduced in the 1900s made cranberries more widely available but tended to damage the berries. Massachusetts lawyer-turned-cranberry grower Marcus Urann pioneered the business of selling canned and juiced berries, in the process co-founding the agricultural cooperative now called Ocean Spray, which in 1941 became the first to offer the jellied "log" we're so familiar with today.
At my mother's house, it's served in round slices, and there's never left left.
– Mike Allen
Deviled eggs topped with paprika
Deviled eggs
Back at home in Tennessee, my family already celebrated Thanksgiving, as a pre-holiday meal was the best date to get far-flung chin back to Colonial Heights. That means I got into some deviled eggs. Not nearly enough of them, though.
I did not like them growing up. I would eat one to be polite, but grimace though it. Somewhere along the line, my tastes changed, and now they are the first thing I look for at any spread.
There is a lot to be said for the basic deviled eggs recipe. Boil the eggs, chop the yolks, mix the yolks with mayonnaise and mustard (and maybe some pickle relish), pip the goop into that egg cavity, sprinkle with a paprika garnish and serve. I'll eat those all day long.
But in recent years, I discovered I had been sheltered, that in fact culinary geniuses have long messed around with the filling. They have mixed pickled onions with sour cream. They have done them with bacon and jalapeno. Or truffle oil and cayenne pepper. Shrimp, crab, salmon, Philadelphia cream cheese, truffles, caviar, salsa, diced ham, foie gras. Check out some local restaurants for mighty tasty versions.
The Southern Foodway Alliance in 2004 did an oral history / contest of stories and recipes. Twenty-four people told their stories and shared their recipes, and one shared that such a name as deviled would not do for this dish, but should be called "dressed" eggs. See all the stories at southernfoodways.org/interview/deviled-eggs-the-basics.
Amazing that such a seemingly basic side became such a testing ground for flavors. Must be because the item itself has been around for so long. According to history.com, deviled eggs' ancestors go back to ancient Rome. Boiled eggs seasoned with spicy sauces were the beginning of the tradition.
As the centuries rolled by, the yolks came out and wound up mixed with cilantro, onion, juice, pepper, coriander and fermented barley or fish (13th century Andalusia ). A couple of centuries later, cooks throughout Europe mixed them with rosemary, cheese, marjoram, parsley, mint and more. The term "deviled" made the lingo in Great Britain in the late 1700s, and a century later, Americans were mixing in mayonnaise, according to the website.
When it comes to my favorite deviled eggs, I like them pretty basic, but savory. Try mixing some horseradish and bacon bits with the yolk, mayo and mustard. Get away from regular mustard and pick something with more bite.
Looks like I should be aiming for two Thanksgiving dinners this year – or maybe just a big platter of deviled eggs.
– Tad Dickens [19659085] / *
