Earlier this week the first Christmas card arrived in the mail. For heaven’s sake it’s not even November 25th, people. Then we stopped by Chick-fil-A and my wife asked if they had their Peppermint Chip milkshake, which of course they did because it’s “Christmas season”. Finally, we’re seeing strings of colored lights and decorations on houses already. Am I losing the battle of the Thanksgiving season with a full week still to go? Maybe I need a different tack with my campaign.
Let’s talk about Thanksgiving dishes today. Are yours made of pottery, wood, metal, or glass? Oh, you thought I meant food. Well, yes, I do, but somehow we’ve stretched the definition of “any container used at the table” to also mean what’s in or on that container. So let’s talk about that. Have a favorite dish at Thanksgiving? Of course you do; everybody does. In fact, the better question is, if your Thanksgiving “dish” is a “favorite” then why don’t you serve it all year round?
Here are my three favorite Thanksgiving dishes for your consideration:
Stuffing. Nine out of ten Thanksgiving stuffing recipes never made it into the bird in the first place. Okay so I made that up, but I find it funny when a food that is “inside” by definition was never, ever inside. Whatever. Stuffing used to be that little pile of gently-spiced spongy material sitting benignly aside your helping of turkey. I’d ignore it or push it around a little but most of this autumn pillow fluff never made it onto my fork. Then I met my wife. You could hibernate for an entire holiday season on my wife’s stuffing recipe. It starts with ground sirloin and pork sausage and a whole lot of butter. It ends with a ton of seasonings and spices, including sage and something called “parsley” (more on that later). Forget the turkey… if a food ever deserved to be called “main course” it’s my wife’s stuffing recipe.
Cranberry sauce. Is there a more wasted food on earth than cranberry sauce? Seriously, this poor little enhancement sees the light of day only once a year, where it sits on your plate for the length of the meal before being scraped mercilessly into the kitchen trash. How many people really make the perfect Thanksgiving “bite” – a combo of turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce? Not many. I think cranberry sauce was created to brighten an otherwise autumn-colored “dish”. Chateaubriand has its Béarnaise sauce. Lamb has its mint jelly. Turkey seems to acknowledge cranberry sauce as a garnish at best: something ornamental instead of “food”.
Speaking of garnishes, can we all agree parsley is the perfect example of one? Yes, you’re adding color to the plate, but don’t you always wonder what you’re supposed to do with those little green trees? Just like the colorful toothpicks you sometimes find holding your sandwich together, parsley is the first thing you remove (at least cranberry sauce rides out the plate for the entire meal). Parsley is transported from wherever it invaded your plate (and what the heck is it doing in my wife’s stuffing, anyway?) to your bread plate, where it lays until its ultimate demise. The relevance of parsley to the Thanksgiving meal (and to any “dish” for that matter) remains a mystery. One I don’t have time for in this post.
Mince pie. We conclude my favorites with the most underappreciated, over-carb’d dessert of them all. Mincemeat pie really did include meat back when the Pilgrims were celebrating Thanksgiving with swans and seals, but eventually someone (who deserves a medal) thought to remove the meat and add a whole lot of sugar to the chopped dried fruit, distilled spirits, and Thanksgiving spices. The result is a pie that is scrumptious in some books (mine) and a veritable construction material in others (everyone else’s). Seriously, this stuff is a brick. It’s like pecan pie – or concrete – only ten times as dense. And don’t forget to soften the blow with a little brandied hard sauce on top. The spiked whipped cream is so good my wife skips the pie and has a dollop of the sauce instead. But if you ask me, she’s missing out on the real dessert.
Your Thanksgiving dinner will no doubt include a favorite “dish” or two this season (glass? metal?) which should also make you wonder why you don’t eat it more often. Is it because the Thanksgiving season is special, and you don’t want to dilute the magic by having your favorites year-round? Yes, I think that’s the reason. Thanksgiving deserves its own “dishes”… and it’s own season. So c’mon, get grateful already!
Some content sourced from the Delish article, “50 Traditional Dishes You Need For The Ultimate Thanksgiving Menu” (mince pie is conspicuously absent from the list). The parsley rant is a loving shout-out to my sister-in-law.
Life In A Word 
I ran across a very telling picture of you the other day wearing a “I love parsley” shirt and holding a bouquet of the green stuff, maybe it’s a love/hate thing 😁
And yes, I will happily leave all the mince pie to you, and I’ll take an extra helping of cranberry sauce. Ah well, sometimes opposites do attract! Love you brother, and we will miss you all this Thanksgiving. I hope you all have a wonderful time.
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Once upon a time I said parsley’s only redeeming value is as a garnish and a certain sister-in-law never let me forget it (including the gift of the aforementioned shirt). We’ve been going back-and-forth about it ever since 🙂
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I won’t get into the parsley debate… this time. But that perfect bite, Dave? Has to be turkey, stuffing, a smidge of sweet potato, and a dollop of CANNED cranberry jelly. Gotta have the can lines. If you’re ever in Arizona, the Cornish Pasty Co. serves up one called “The Pilgrim”. The perfect bite wrapped in delicious pasty crust. Served all year long!
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I put raisins and apples in my stuffing. I like the flavour, but it has the added entertainment value of watching people who don’t like the raisins try to pick them out.
If Americans celebrated Thanksgiving in October like we do in Canada, it opens up many weeks of enjoying the Christmas tree and lights. I sometimes put my tree up in November and take it down in May because I like how the lights dispel the gloom of cold winter evenings.
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I prefer my stuffing savory and my raisins in my mince pie instead. And yes, I wish we Americans would forego any belief the original Thanksgiving took place in November, and reschedule the celebration to somewhere in the calendar months removed from Christmas!
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Hey wait, I love cranberry sauce with my turkey. LOL, I do. Stuffing, I want your wife’s stuffing!! I love pork sausage in stuffing. I’m getting HUNGRY!
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If “hungry” keeps you focused on the meaning of Thanksgiving through November 23rd then I’m happy to oblige. Whoa, so that’s already two votes in favor of cranberries out of three comments. Maybe the sauce isn’t as wasted as I think!
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Break down, give it a try. It’s great with turkey.
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I went to a big box store just after Halloween and they had Christmas decorations. A house around the corner from me has a giant inflatable turkey sitting on top of a giant inflatable Santa holding a sign saying, “Wait your turn fat boy.” I love my neighbors.
My wife makes her own mincemeat. It takes weeks of soaking in brandy and makes the perfect desert.
and parsley I never understood. Just why?
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Homemade mincemeat? I’m coming to your house for Thanksgiving. Love the turkey/Santa combo. If it didn’t represent the commercial side of both holidays I might go for it in an effort to bolster my campaign.
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I love Parsley! Not only does it clean your breathe but it’s like eating little tree’s.
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Yes there are always two camps, aren’t there? You can have my share of the little green trees on Thanksgiving.
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I do love some good stuffing! I love that it tastes so good the next day. My mom makes good honey butter for bread rolls too. Apart from that everything else I could take or leave except potatoes are always a good idea.
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Homemade honey butter on Thanksgiving sounds amazing. My mother always made Pillsbury crescent rolls; noteworthy considering she was all about homemade dishes. My wife’s family’s stuffing recipe calls for some hard-to-find ingredients like “Kitchen Bouquet”. And don’t you hate when manufacturers reduce the amount of a product (ex. 15 oz. from 16 oz.) to save a buck, but now it doesn’t match up with what your recipe calls for?
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I love mince pie and it’s almost impossible to find it in bakeries anymore. I could make it from scratch, but I’m not that enthusiastic. I also agree that parsley is the perfect garnish. It looks festive and supposedly if you eat it after your meal it’ll freshen your breath. That’s why it was put on dinner plates to begin with.
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Ah, a fellow mince pie lover! We are a small but persistent lot, Ally. I always have to ask at the market where to find the mincemeat, because inevitably it’s on the bottom shelf way in the back (and dusty). Nope, no sell on parsley. I’ll take a starlight mint instead.
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Well Dave, I’ll top your comment on tripping over Thanksgiving in our rush to get to Christmas, by telling you that I have already heard an ad for a New Year’s party and to book NOW to guarantee your admission.
It’s funny you mention a favorite food that was exclusive to the holidays as I mentioned that in writing my upcoming blog post – and I mentioned stuffing. My mom was all about stuffing – she loved it and whenever we had a holiday bird, she was happy to make stuffing for the bird and on the side. She grew up where stuffing sandwiches were a holiday treat the day after Thanksgiving where they celebrated at her grandfather’s farm. Years later, when “Stove Top Stuffing” became a “thing” my Mom would reluctantly use it to stuff pork chops, or as a side dish, but not before adding her “secret ingredients” and cutting up celery to deem it like stuffing “from scratch” where you crumbed up the bread. Your wife’s stuffing sounds awesome. When we had Rock Cornish Hens for a holiday meal, my mom used a savory herbs blend and raisins in long grain and wild rice. Gee I do miss those meals – it’s just me, so I keep it simple. I agree with you on the mince pie. Another holiday favorite at my house. Mom would half a bottle of None Such liquid mincemeat filling and add some rum to each bottle/half … it was pretty potent by Christmastime. Mom didn’t drink but she enjoyed those tarts.
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We mince pie fans are few and far between, Linda. In fact, I don’t make a pie anymore because I end up wasting at least half of it. I settle for the Walker’s tarts instead, which are wonderful warmed up and with brandied hard sauce. I forgot about stuffing sandwiches; a unique Thanksgiving leftover. Believe I had one or two in my school lunches.
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That mince pie gets soggy quickly, so the tarts are a better option. I forgot to say my mom let her rum and mincemeat “set” from July to Christmastime when she made those tarts. They were definitely just a holiday treat. It’s fun to compare notes on holiday sweet treats and stuffing sandwiches!
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