What’s your favorite Thanksgiving dish? SLO County columnist recounts memories of meals past
A detail devil lurks amid all the Thanksgiving Week gratitude and grocery shopping. What to fix for the big meal?
For many people, turkey is a required main event, along with gravy or a sauce of some sort. How you fix the bird is open for discussion, and feeding those with special diets adds menu complexity.
But there’s another vexing culinary pothole: Which side dishes?
You could drive yourself batty trying to accommodate everybody’s Thanksgiving Day must-haves, especially if you’re feeding a big group.
To help alleviate that decision stress, I asked a bunch of online and other buddies what their preferred “other” foods are for the Thanksgiving groaning board.
Out of dozens of answers, 25% of respondents unhesitatingly said stuffing or dressing. (What you call it depends on if it’s cooked inside the bird or in a separate pan.)
While many said cranberry sauce is essential, none of them said they prefer the canned versions that reportedly are the preferred choice of 76% of Americans, according to manufacturer Ocean Spray.
Flavors and preparations were all over the place, with cornbread battling yeast breads, basic recipes versus lots of additions — some a bit eccentric — and selecting herbs and spices.
Sometimes, one recipe isn’t enough, whether you’re talking green bean casserole, mac and cheese or other elements of the traditional Thanksgiving spread.
Christel Chesney of Cambria’s Rotary Club wrote in a Facebook reply, “We always had two dressings for Thanksgiving. My parents, both being fabulous cooks, each made their own pan. My mom liked hers moist, my dad liked his dry. We always had enough for an army.”
Yup, that sounds like Thanksgiving.
Some Thanksgiving favorites are less common
Respondents also mentioned a few best-loved, but less ubiquitous dishes for turkey day tables, based perhaps on where those people celebrated Thanksgivings during their formative years.
Among those side dishes were collard greens, black-eyed peas, macaroni and cheese, creamed onions, English sticky pudding (yeah, we’ll let a dessert slide in) and fruit salad.
Nobody mentioned green salad — although Lynn Diehl, wine expert and former TV news anchor, said “what I actually like best about Thanksgiving is that vegetables take center stage.”
“It’s a great example of the use of flavors and spices to elevate the taste of veg, and shows us that we can eat more of them in an appealing way,” Diehl wrote. “And aren’t we fortunate to have access and means to freshly grown produce? Who needs to cover up the real taste when it is so fresh?”
A fave for Leslie McKinley of San Luis Obispo is her mom’s homemade cranberry relish, made, she said, “with lots of big chunks of oranges.”
“She was raised in Wisconsin, and oranges were not as readily available to her,” McKinley said.
Along those fresh-produce lines, Kristi Marinelly’s preferred T-day side dish is “made with all the wonderful fresh fruits of this season: oranges, pineapple, kiwi, apples, persimmon and more, maybe topped with walnuts, no dressing.”
“My family always had a fruit salad at Thanksgiving and that’s the first thing I reached for the next day,” the Cayucos resident said. “With all the heavy food, the fruit was more than welcome.”
Appetizers were center stage at the home of Patty Kemp-Wright’s grandparents, especially her grandmother Alma’s famous orange Jello salad with mandarin oranges, then topped with sour cream and mini marshmallows.
“I’ve tried to keep it alive, but it has never tasted the same,” Kemp-Wright wrote, echoing a nostalgic yen for many of us trying to replicate a cherished family recipe. “Must have been all the love she put in it.”
Another appetizer, this one from Aaron Wharton’s family, makes his wife Jennifer Wharton queasy: clam dip.
“However, after 30 years of marriage, it would not be the holidays without it,” she said.
Fortunately, he makes it, so his wife can keep her distance.
Sue Girard mentioned traditional, velvety English roast gravy. Having it for Thanksgiving or any time, she said, “brings back those days at Gram’s holiday apron strings right away. ... The aroma is better than any scent from a designer oil infuser.”
Years-ago, holidays at the home of late Cambria and county activist Helen May included annual, brotherly high jinks among her sons Rich, Roger and Bill May, according to their sister Patricia Vernie of Washington state.
“Mom would ask one of my brothers to do the mashing,” Vernie said. “The potatoes always ended up blue or green from food coloring. The first time we saw them, no one wanted to eat them. Since then, it’s expected.”
Day-after leftovers got a lot of votes, too.
Nancy Zinke of Cambria loves “everything all mixed together the day after.” Ray Riordan of Morro Bay loves breakfast quiches. Nurse Kelsey Brown of Reno anchors Black Friday sandwiches on a pumpkin roll stacked high with stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and turkey.
How about non-holiday meals?
Then I asked if respondents enjoyed their Thanksgiving faves at any other time of year.
A few said “yes,” citing a fondness for year-round stuffing and gravy, and others said mashed potatoes are good anytime.
But most said “no.”
Holiday side dishes apparently are event specific.
Rick Bruce of Cambria seemed to sum up the sentiment, replying “part of what makes them special is the timing.”
Circling back, however, as I tackle the big, classical menu for our smaller gathering this year — no, I won’t leave off the wild rice — I’ll have no trouble being hugely grateful amid the chaos and hilarity.
We’ll have cherished family members helping to prep and share the meal on the table, and we’re blessed enough to have the table, food to put on it and a home that envelopes all of us with love.
Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!
