Hmm. I was commenting at dinner that although most people seem to think of turkey as the essential Thanksgiving dish, even before I became a vegetarian it was always the cranberry sauce, not the turkey, that I looked forward to. (I didn't figure out the cranberry sauce was supposed to go on the turkey until after I stopped eating turkey (which was long before I stopped eating meat altogether); I figured it was supposed to go atop the mashed potatoes.) But over the years my tastes have changed, so now it's good-and-interesing homemade cranberry sauce that appeals to me, not the stuff from a can.
And I like good (or even middling) mashed potatoes; only really bad mashed potatoes remind me in any way of paste. But bad mashed potatoes are bad twice: once for being difficult to eat, and again for the disappointment when I've been expecting better. Where I agree with you is the sweet potatoes: sweet potatoes are yummy yummy yummy, but if you candy them they can wind up too sweet to appreciate any other aspect of their flavour, and they're sweet enough just from being cooked at all. (And marshmallows on top? Sheesh!) I've never been fond of stuffing, which makes things a little awkward when somebody cooks a separate batch just so I can have some that wasn't tainted by being inside the bird. And though I have had some pretty nifty pumpkin pie (Maugorn makes a really unusual but yummy version), if given a choice between pumpkin and some other fruit, I'll go for apple or cherry.
BTW, if I understand correctly, the right way to get the turkey that golden-brown colour involves a blowtorch. (Not for the cooking as a whole, just for that finishing touch.) But I can't say that I took good notes, since I'm rather unlikely to ever need to cook a turkey.
Anyhow, it is interesting what foods "have to" be present at particular holidays.
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Date: 2003-11-27 10:28 pm (UTC)And I like good (or even middling) mashed potatoes; only really bad mashed potatoes remind me in any way of paste. But bad mashed potatoes are bad twice: once for being difficult to eat, and again for the disappointment when I've been expecting better. Where I agree with you is the sweet potatoes: sweet potatoes are yummy yummy yummy, but if you candy them they can wind up too sweet to appreciate any other aspect of their flavour, and they're sweet enough just from being cooked at all. (And marshmallows on top? Sheesh!) I've never been fond of stuffing, which makes things a little awkward when somebody cooks a separate batch just so I can have some that wasn't tainted by being inside the bird. And though I have had some pretty nifty pumpkin pie (Maugorn makes a really unusual but yummy version), if given a choice between pumpkin and some other fruit, I'll go for apple or cherry.
BTW, if I understand correctly, the right way to get the turkey that golden-brown colour involves a blowtorch. (Not for the cooking as a whole, just for that finishing touch.) But I can't say that I took good notes, since I'm rather unlikely to ever need to cook a turkey.
Anyhow, it is interesting what foods "have to" be present at particular holidays.