Just about every common food option for thanksgiving is mediocre. Turkey is dry and flavorless unless you drench it in salt. Cranberry sauce is awful. Not only does dressing (stuffing) look unappealing it also tastes just as bad. And pumpkin pie could be better. Casserole and mash potatoes are alright but nothing to just fond over. The only good meal is mac and cheese and that ONLY depends on who’s cooking it. The 4th of July is the superior holiday in terms of food.
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I would also throw in barbecue chicken and potato salad in with Fourth of July food. But hey even as simple as it is atleast you can for the most expect it to be actually good.
BBQ chicken is way easier to make dry than a turkey that slowly roasts all day
You can hide dry chicken with a lot of barbecue sauce. Gravy isn’t as good at hiding dry turkey.
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This isn’t about the food being bad, this is about your family being bad cooks.
I second this. I thought I hated turkey until I went to my first long term significant other’s family thanksgiving in my 20’s…
Turns out my mom just always overcooked it.
lol I consider my grandmother (the cook) to be the best I’ve ever had. But when it comes to thanksgiving, it’s average at best.
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it’s not always about the cook. Some food is just subpar. I’ve had it from her, my other grandma, other family members, cooks at school. Eating the same dishes every single year. It ain’t horrible but it’s not to die for either. Go ahead and downvote because I didn’t agree with you, that’s fine lmao
I suspect a lot comes from the ingredients being mediocre when you buy them at high demand periods.
I come from the French country side, my father raises poultry and makes his own foie gras and deli meats. When I see the shit they sell at Christmas, which most of my fellow countrymen eat every year… I wouldn’t be surprised reading a comment similar to yours about French Christmas food.
Maybe your grandma can’t afford the good stuff, or doesn’t have access to it ?
This is possible in the US for sure. My first thanksgiving not at home, I wound up getting my bird the night before.
The smallest one they had left was 23lbs. And it was still frozen.
Burned out two full size hair dryers & one travel size, trying to defrost the bird.
There were only three of us & we drank cognac all day. We didn’t eat until almost 10:30 that night.
It. Was. Terrible.
Disagree. Skill issue. Was going to tell a joke but you already roasted your own mother.
Grandmother, actually. And I consider her to have the best food I’ve had. Everyone’s trying to say “it’s the cook” instead of perhaps considering that certain things just don’t taste good. Never said it was horrible, I said it was overrated
Don’t taste good to you, maybe. That’s why taste is a matter of taste.
I love all those “low” savoury notes. Sounds like you probably like “brighter” or sharper flavours.
Legitimately, my mouth started watering just as I was typing this up lol
Sounds like you need to learn how to cook.
This post is such a skill issue it’s crazy. Get some gravy on the turkey, make some cranberry sauce and stuffing from scratch, and get some pie variety if you’re not a fan of pumpkin. Casserole and mash potatoes are mid, agree, and good mac and cheese is godly regardless of the time of year.
Man, this is a great post. Full on unpopular, no matter how you look at it. Kudos on that! Also, good on you for not making it a rant about other people’s preferences.
Any way, that aside, I don’t disagree with you, though I think your points are off as to why Thanksgiving food is overrated.
First, a lot of what you’re using as a basis for that is down to the specific foods being cooked well. Any of those things that are made from good ingredients and is tbhen well executed are phenomenal. Others have covered that already, and the bit about turkeys being horribly bred, and treated even worse while alive.
So, moving on to why I tend to agree with you.
Thanksgiving food is nostalgia. It isn’t about the food at all, it’s about having a tradition. This means that you have people making things that they don’t practice much in a time crunch, with the real effort going into making it a Thanksgiving meal, rather than a good meal they’re able to execute well.
Turkey, as the perfect example. How often do you cook a whole turkey? Once, maybe twice a year for the vast majority. But it can take dozens of tries to get a dish right the first time. And it might take longer to be reliable with it, depending on the complexity of the dish.
Of course Thanksgiving turkey is overrated, people aren’t happy with it because it’s great, it’s the tradition. So they ignore the fact that it’s actually a difficult thing to execute well, and that most turkey you can buy is crappy turkey because it isn’t important.
About the only thing in your list that isn’t harder to get right than the average dish is mashed potatoes. Frankly, if you’ve only had mashed potatoes that are alright, in your words, chances are that whoever cooked the rest did a mid tier job on those too. Mashed potatoes are freaking bomb when done well, and they aren’t hard to do well.
So I’m with you, Thanksgiving food is very overrated, but mainly because they’re difficult foods that aren’t practiced outside of the holidays. The foods themselves, done well, are amazing.
Upvote for unpopular, and I totally disagree. I haven’t had a dry turkey since I was a kid and my parents were still young. Stuffing, mash potatoes, and green bean casserole to me are like comfort food. Our family also does candied yams, devilled eggs, ham, bacon-wrapped asparagus, homemade dinner rolls, and all sorts of deliciousness.
You’re doing it wrong. It sounds like you’re following some goofy rules about what Thanksgiving is supposed to be.
Turkey? Yeah, sure, we’ll have one. Ours wears a woven blanket made of bacon to cook. Never had it come out dry.
Ham too, why not. Lasagna, of course. Crab cakes, definitely. Maybe a beef roast or ribs.
Sides? No fewer than 12. Chestnut stuffing, potato filling, green beans, roasted potatoes, caprese salad, broccoli, asparagus, etc.
Desserts. Should be four or five. Pumpkin pie (don’t like it? Good. I wanted it all anyway). Cherry pie. Apple pie. Blueberry pie, chocolate cream roll, ice cream, etc.
Based on your description, whoever is cooking your food doesn’t know how to do it right. It’s not like Thanksgiving requires you to cook everything wrong.
So uh is your family looking to adopt? 🤤
All the foods I mention are standard Thanksgiving meals. It’s just mediocre. Don’t see it any other way.
It’s only mediocre if it isn’t prepared properly.
I love turkey, but I’ve never had a turkey come out dry. Mother brines hers, I just baste it and mine is also nice.
Cranberry sauce is delicious but I home can that in advance, cranberry orange thing. Very tasty.
Overall I’d probably pick chicken being easier to cook, but the turkey is not bad and oh man cold turkey sandwiches later are just easy lazy meals for me.
You need to try a deep fried turkey that’s been injected with seasoning. And maybe try other people’s sides whoever has been making your food sounds awful at cooking
Turkey is pointless. It’s just chicken but always slightly worse. You have to deep fry turkey to get it within spitting distance of your average grocery store rotisserie chicken.
I’m mostly with OP here. The traditional American Thanksgiving menu is aggressively mediocre.
Best part of thanksgiving is the leftover turkey sandiwches
Hell. Yes.
Fry up that skin like a piece of bacon. Brine some tomatoes. Mix up some concoction of mayo/gravy/whatever suits your liking…
Or…
Dice up that turkey & skin. Press it together into discs with the leftover stuffing/dressing, and brown it up like a patty with some butter…
This goes surprisingly well with a bit of canned cranberry mixed with mayo.
Leftover Turkey sandwich time is the Holiest time of the year.
For what it’s worth, it depends so much on whether or not the meal is done justice by a proper cook. It’s a tall order, and loads of folks cooking it are just doing their best.
That being said, shit is phenomenal when it’s done justice. I was quite lucky to live in the household with the best spread of all time. Ma’s t-day feast is undefeated.
Talking crisp-skinned juicy bird with balanced herbs and seasoning. Fully homemade roasted stuffing with crispy bits and sausage, a jealously guarded family recipe. Fresh homemade cranberry sauce two-ways cause both versions too damn good to skip either. Spuds with gravy made from them bird-veg roast drippings – most valuable juice on the planet. Homemade lefste. Cranberry upside down cake, or like pumpkin cheesecake, the works.
Just got really excited for Fall ngl…
For me, DEFINITELY an unpopular opinion, but for obvious reasons I’m biased af. (Don’t even get me started on the other holidays)
Separate the breast from the dark meat and cook to different times. Reassemble on the cutting board. Enjoy perfect turkey.
Alternative: oven the breast and confit the dark meat with rosemary and garlic. You do it once a year so why not go the extra mile? Leftover confit meat can be made into ravioli filling.
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If you don’t care for a cranberry sauce’s tartness or oversweetness to compensate for that tartness, consider pomegranate seeds or red currant jelly instead. Much more balance between sweet, fruit, and tart.
One Thanksgiving my housemates and I all realized none of us were going home for Thanksgiving, and the richest of us offered to buy whatever I needed to make a proper Thanksgiving meal. I agreed on the condition that the kitchen was off limits to everyone except me the day before, and day of until 2:00 pm. They agreed.
I spent the better part of two days making the turkey, stuffing, four different potato dishes, (mashed potatoes, potato salad, au gratin potatoes and baked yams) turkey and beef gravy, green bean and ham hock casserole, mac and cheese, a pumpkin pie, a strawberry pie, a mince meat pie, and cranberry sauce. All from scratch, exept the pie crusts. That’s just unnecessary outside of competitive cooking.
They actually left me alone to cook, for the first time ever, and everything came out perfectly. I loaded up my plate, and decided to take a walk when I heard the benefactor of the meal pick up his phone, call someone, and say “Hey Grandma, happy Thanksgiving. Did you know that you can cook a turkey and have the breast be moist?”
Got pissed at one of them because he didn’t eat anything but the pies, and I was the only person that got any of the pies. Didn’t even get a piece of the strawberry pie. I made homemade whipped cream for that thing too!
This was over a decade ago, and yes, I’m still salty about that.
You’ve just been subjected to bad Thanksgiving food.
Nope, bad food in general.
