Sitting at lunch today the topic of conversation was Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a day to get together with family and share in a big meal. Every Thanksgiving celebration seems to have the same components when it comes to the food.
Our family does the big turkey with all the traditional sides. But what are your traditional sides? Everyone has their favorites and dislikes.
I was reading an article this morning; A Dear Abby article. It went something like this: Dear Abby: My niece wants to host Thanksgiving this year and I’m not ready to give up my hosting duties, besides my niece and her husband are foodies and I’m afraid that if she hosts it, all the traditional foods will go by the waste-side. What should I do?
It got me thinking about what are traditional foods and how do they evolve? If you think back to the very first Thanksgiving we read about in our elementary history books, the food was quite different on the table than it is today. Culinary historians believed that the English Settlers and Native Americans ate mostly seafood and perhaps roasted duck or goose as their main dish. Onions, cabbage and beans were side dishes, as well as, corn meal made into porridge. Because the colonies didn’t have butter or wheat flour, pies were not served. Instead they made custard and served them in hollowed out pumpkins.
Well I have never eaten seafood for the main entrée for Thanksgiving or porridge for that matter. Custard, What?
So, our traditional foods may not be so traditional. Let’s explore the Thanksgiving table a few decades ago. Do you remember Waldorf salad? What about Ambrosia salad? Anybody up for a piece of mince pie or scoop of plum pudding? I could go on and on, but the jest of this is; that what was once traditional has changed and so do our tastes.
So the lady in the So & So article, upset about having her niece possibly switching up the food, should re-think her opinion about traditional food. What is traditional to you may not be traditional to me or even traditional to the era. Plus palates change. I believe that where we live influences our tastes. Where I live, I eat a wide variety of ethnic foods. Those different flavors help expand my palate; I yearn for different spices and tastes.
Getting back to Thanksgiving, I embrace changing it up, switching things around, trying new recipes and foods. Maybe starting slowly, roast your turkey, but try a new stuffing recipe. How about ditching the green-bean, cream of mushroom casserole side dish and use fresh green-beans in a new way. Love pumpkin pie? Why not bake a pumpkin pie and make a pumpkin cheesecake? You might start something… Maybe a new traditional dish?
So what is real traditional thanksgiving food? Well, I believe it is up to you decide on what your traditional food really is!
