Your Thanksgiving?

SomeRandom said:

Since I’m not American I’m largely unfamiliar with the I guess “traditions” of the holiday

So what do you do on Thanksgiving? What does your feast look like? Favourite foods? Favourite events?
Have at it my Yank friends!!

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Brickjectivity said:

It is important to take a moment together and all purposely feel thankful. Some people will go around the feast table and state something that each feels thankful for. Many people say a prayer of thanks to God before eating the food and thanks for each other or other things. It is generally believed that thankfulness is a matter of choice and of perspective, and that we should learn to appreciate what we have. After pondering this most people eat.

Often, however, there are before dinner snacks such as chips. Before the meal there are often children running about playing as the adults discuss. Often there are several conversations: one in the kitchen and others in the living areas of the house. The food is in the final stages of preparation, and any teenagers feel like they are starving as they can smell everything. When thanks begins everyone stands still or sits still, and very often everyone bows their heads.

Very commonly there is a meat or multiple meats. Turkey is common, as is ham. Meat is not required however. We also have bread dressing with meat flavoring and spices or a simple spicy dressing. It is common to have mashed potatoes with salty gravy, and some people like to have cranberry jelly. There be some vegetables such as green beans, whole kernel corn, squash and others.

Usually there is a large salad. Here in USA the most common lettuce is iceberg lettuce, but others have begun to gain favor such as romaine lettuce and spinach. During my lifetime salad dressings have changed. One of the strangest dressings, 1000 Island, is something like ketchup mixed with mayonnaise. This dressing predates Ranch dressing which appears during my teenage years and simply blows away everyone.

Ranch completely changes salad and many other foods. In USA it is the new ketchup. Typically anyone that has guests must have ranch dressing available, even if no one uses any. It has become more important than cranberry sauce.

Hopefully everyone eats just enough and not too much, however it is common for children and adults to stuff themselves and to feel tired after the meal. This is a faux pas, for they then must eat dessert soon after. When everyone has had regular food the tables are cleared away, and then everyone starts to eat dessert. It is common for every family to bring a pie or some other dessert. Mercifully one of the desserts usually is a fruit cocktail of sliced peaches, apples, pairs, cherries and bananas. Often this fruit cocktail is also available during the main meal, as it is not clear whether it is a dessert or not.

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SomeRandom said:

Honestly that sounds absolutely delicious

And not too far off to what I’m used to eating at Christmas and Easter. (Though admittedly we BBQ or “grill” our meats as well as roasting them.)
Turkey is perhaps less common but still enjoyed here all the same

Seems to me that getting together to gorge ourselves on yummy foods is a universal principle
I mean look at the festive feasts we have for various religious and local holidays. Diwali, Cinco De Mayo, Thanksgiving etc lol

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Father Heathen said:

We Americans will adopt foreign holidays as an excuse to eat, drink, and party. I'm surprised we haven't appropriated Guy Fawkes yet.

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• An antipasto platter of lettuce, salami, ham, pepperoni (just another salami, really) cheese (usually provolone), olives, roasted red peppers. A separate dish contains anchovies (pronounced aal-eech-ey in Italian but spelled like the girl's name, Alice) in olive oil, which not everyone likes, hence taking or not to add to your own salad plate, along with some crusty Italian bread.
• Lasagna, baked ziti, baked mani-cawty or some other ooey-gooey semolina and fermented milk based concoction that is believed to be Italian food.
• The stuffed and roasted turkey, and most likely a baked ham. Alongside these are sweet potatoes (yams and sweet potatoes are not the same thing, believe it or not) soaked and baked in pancake syrup, brown sugar and butter; some kinds of steamed and/or overcooked vegetables (broccoli was my family's staple); mashed potatoes; gravy made of turkey drippings, flour and water; bread stuffing inside the turkey, some baked separately in another casserole; jellied cranberry sauce cut into slices out of the can.
• There is virtually every dessert one can get their overstuffed carb-loaded hands on. In ages past there was a bowl of mixed nuts in their shells for after the main part of dinner. There was also what we called fin-ook. The original word is finocchio, which is fennel, a type of celery. Fennel is said to be a digestive. Trivia: an Italian slang word for a gay man is finook. Why? Well, silly person, because finook is a queer celery. I kid you not.

Jainarayan said:

This year I'm working from 6 am - 11 am because the store has decided that people who don't plan need more time to be unprepared and shop at the last minute, thereby panicking and taking our their frustrations on us lowlife supermarket and deli clerks for their lack of preparation.

If we (husband and I) do anything at all other than watching cartoons or puttering around the house, it would be going to my sister's house. She, as the Holder of the Big Cooking Spoon, having inherited it from our mother, maintains, on a much smaller scale, what we used to observe as a typical Italian-American Thanksgiving dinner.

• An antipasto platter of lettuce, salami, ham, pepperoni (just another salami, really) cheese (usually provolone), olives, roasted red peppers. A separate dish contains anchovies (pronounced aal-eech-ey in Italian but spelled like the girl's name, Alice) in olive oil, which not everyone likes, hence taking or not to add to your own salad plate, along with some crusty Italian bread.
• Lasagna, baked ziti, baked mani-cawty or some other ooey-gooey semolina and fermented milk based concoction that is believed to be Italian food.
• The stuffed and roasted turkey, and most likely a baked ham. Alongside these are sweet potatoes (yams and sweet potatoes are not the same thing, believe it or not) soaked and baked in pancake syrup, brown sugar and butter; some kinds of steamed and/or overcooked vegetables (broccoli was my family's staple); mashed potatoes; gravy made of turkey drippings, flour and water; bread stuffing inside the turkey, some baked separately in another casserole; jellied cranberry sauce cut into slices out of the can.
• There is virtually every dessert one can get their overstuffed carb-loaded hands on. In ages past there was a bowl of mixed nuts in their shells for after the main part of dinner. There was also what we called fin-ook. The original word is finocchio, which is fennel, a type of celery. Fennel is said to be a digestive. Trivia: an Italian slang word for a gay man is finook. Why? Well, silly person, because finook is a queer celery. I kid you not.

View attachment 68729

Now, if you don't agree that's one hell of a queer celery, then I just don't know what.

If I sound like I hold the whole affair and subject in disdain and contempt ... that is quite correct. I think the whole thing is little more than a yearly excuse to eat to the point of vomiting, long bereft of anything meaningful resembling being thankful.

But hey, what do I know?

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SomeRandom said:

Fair enough
Sucks to be working the holidays
I can only hope you get a bit extra money as compensation?

Your meal plan sounds absolutely delightful. Can I have some?

Your “queer” celery and I agree it looks odd is called Fennel in Australianese

Can I ask, what is the Big Spoon?

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Jainarayan said:

We're supposed to get time and a half per hour for working the holiday. I do have to say it was voluntary, though I still think that stores being open on holidays is reprehensible.

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Jainarayan said:

The food is actually pretty good.

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Jainarayan said:

Ah! The Big Spoon... it is a figure of speech, an honorary title referring to matriarchal authority in the kitchen. Only the eldest female, the matriarch of the family is considered to be the holder of the spoon. There are customs and taboos one must never violate. For example, it's nice to bring something to dinner but it must never "outshine" something the matriarch would make. A guest must not excessively "ooh" and "ahh" over another guest's cooking talents in the presence of the matriarch. One should also not excessively suck up to the cook. You must also understand that most of this is satire and poking fun at Italian-American families.

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SomeRandom said:

Since I’m not American I’m largely unfamiliar with the I guess “traditions” of the holiday

So what do you do on Thanksgiving? What does your feast look like? Favourite foods? Favourite events?
Have at it my Yank friends!!

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Sand Dancer said:

Dark meat turkey, green bean casserole, sweet potato pie, and pumpkin pie are my favorites.

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SomeRandom said:

That sounds yummy

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Brickjectivity said:

Typically anyone that has guests must have ranch dressing available, even if no one uses any.

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Shadow Wolf said:

That is a new one to me (I do not like ranch).
As is the must eating dinner part. It's not unusual if I don't, especially if I'd have multiple Thanksgiving dinners in a day.

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Brickjectivity said:

Yes. Multiple thanksgiving dinners is starting to be a thing. I hear about this all the time.

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