Our Teachers Say
In 1789 George Washington called for a National Day of Thanksgiving and prayer in gratitude for the end of the Revolutionary War. Almost 75 years later, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving Day the last Thursday in November.
Ever since Americans have been celebrating a feast of food with family and friends each November. While many foods originated with the first Thanksgiving – including turkey, corn, and fall vegetables – others have been added to the holiday, producing a cornucopia of tastes and smells.
ThinkFives and ESGI surveyed hundreds of teachers to discover their favorite Thanksgiving foods. Here are their choices.
Mashed Potatoes
It’s almost certain that sweet potatoes were not part of the first Thanksgiving. It’s more likely that the Spanish introduced them over 100 years later, and that would have been primarily the white potato.
Today they are the starch of our thanksgiving meal, an essential element. For many families, it is not an American Thanksgiving without mashed potatoes. Traditionalists may prefer the pure fluff of potatoes, but for others, it may include an infusion of garlic, butter, cheese, sour cream, or even horseradish.
And we would be amiss if we didn’t send love to mashed potato’s significant other, gravy. Turkey gravy puddled in a small pool atop the fluffed whiteness is the perfect accompaniment. (Shortformernie and epicurious.com)
Fun Fact
According to Bon Appetit, the key to making the best mashed potatoes of your life are:
- Use Yukon gold potatoes
- Boil your potatoes in large pieces
- Keep your potatoes hot
- Add butter first
- Taste Constantly
- Dribble liquid in (milk or cream)
- Infuse with aromatics (thyme, rosemary, garlic, etc.)
Sweet Potatoes
Sweet potatoes began appearing at seasonal holidays in the 1800s as a replacement for pumpkin in pies and other fall dishes.
Today, sweet potatoes are a staple of the Thanksgiving buffet. They can be infused with maple syrup or butter, but in many families, children have a smiling memory of sweet potato casserole topped with toasted marshmallows. It might be a sweet side dish, but it’s hard to have only one scoopful. (Spoonuniversity.com)
Fun Fact
One cup of baked sweet potato with skin has 769% of the daily value of vitamin A, far more than the amount found in yams (3%) or white potatoes (1%). Vitamin A can improve vision, reproduction, and the immune system – and it helps the heart, lungs, and kidneys function properly.
Turkey
Turkey is uniquely American and was probably part of the earliest Thanksgiving. Pilgrim Edward Winslow, in an early letter to a friend, chronicled,
“Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fouling, that’s so we might after a special manner rejoice together, after we gathered the fruits of our laborers; they four in one day killed as much foul, as with a little help besides, served the company almost a week.”
Since early days, turkey has been the centerpiece of the Thanksgiving feast. It was a plentiful bird, always available for slaughter and big enough to feed a family.
While the smell of a Turkey roasting in an oven is a quintessential Thanksgiving aroma, many other methods of cooking a Turkey have evolved over the years. You can slow cook a Turkey, use an air fryer, smoke a Turkey, or, as we’ve seen on numerous YouTube videos, deep fry a Turkey (those frying mishaps are funny, but do be careful). (Tastingtable.com and Eater.com)
Fun Facts About Turkeys
- Only male turkeys gobble, and that is during mating season
- Wild turkeys can fly despite a common myth that they can’t
- Benjamin Franklin was long an advocate for turkey as the national bird, not a bald eagle.
- Turkeys have excellent eyesight, able to see 270 degrees.
- Over 46 million turkeys are consumed each year for Thanksgiving.
Pecan Pie
Is there anything sweeter than the smell of a pecan pie coming out of the oven? This 20th-century addition to the Thanksgiving table is now one of the more popular. According to “The Pecan: A History of America’s Native Nut,” the push for pecan pie nationally had to do with the nut’s surplus. Companies pushed using the nut in recipes on their product labels.
Pecans are harvested during the Fall throughout October and November, so pecan pie on the holiday table seemed like the perfect combination. It’s a relatively simple recipe of pecans, eggs, syrup, butter, sugar, and vanilla, making it a great complement to pumpkin pie.
Fun Fact
The biggest surge in serving pecan pie for Thanksgiving happened in the 1920s when Karo syrup began printing recipes for pecan pie on cans of their product. The syrup made it even easier to bake pecan pie at home.
Stuffing
Topping our list at #1 is Stuffing.
What is stuffing? According to our friends at Webster, it’s a seasonal mixture of breadcrumbs, vegetables, and butter that’s typically placed inside the cavity of a Turkey. But this unappetizing definition hardly tells the story.
Each region of the US puts its own twist on stuffing. For example, the traditionalists in the northeast might use a white bread base and even include cranberries. If you are adventurous, you might even include chopped oysters.
Head South and you will often find cornbread stuffing with diced celery, onions, and mushrooms. In Minnesota and parts of the Midwest, moist wild rice stuffing usually replaces the bread cubes, making this stuffing really stand apart from the rest of the country.
In California, the quarantine trend of sourdough starters has been put to good use. They skipped white bread and used sourdough, especially in San Francisco. (Spoonuniversity.com)
Fun Fact
Employees at Stove Top have spent years perfecting the size of the breadcrumb in their boxes. If the breadcrumbs are too small, then the stuffing gets too soggy. If they are too big, the texture is too coarse and not pleasurable to eat. So what is the perfect size? About the size of an eraser.
Honorable mentions
- Pumpkin pie
- Cranberry sauce
- Macaroni salad
- Homemade rolls
- Ham
- Green bean casserole
- Corn,
- Glazed carrots
- Deviled eggs
What Thanksgiving food do you like best?
Resources
- https://spoonuniversity.com/lifestyle/stuffing-is-queen-of-thanksgiving
- https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-11-sweet-potatoes-holiday-dish.html
- https://spoonuniversity.com/lifestyle/why-we-eat-sweet-potatoes-with-marshmallows#:~:text=The%20Thanksgiving%20Tradition&text=The%20sweet%20vegetable%20did%20however,known%20in%20the%20culinary%20world.
- https://peddlersson.com/the-origin-story-of-thanksgiving-dinner/
- https://www.britannica.com/story/why-do-we-eat-turkey-on-thanksgiving
- https://www.tastingtable.com/871941/how-pecan-pie-became-a-thanksgiving-tradition/
- https://shortformernie.medium.com/thanksgiving-mashed-potatoes-history-b6d48844e809
- https://www.epicurious.com/expert-advice/mashed-potatoes-are-completely-necessary-at-thanksgiving-article
Now I’m hungry! My favorite is the stuffing! 🤤
You absolutely CANNOT expect me to choose just ONE!!! 🦃😂