Random Poll o' the Week: Regional/Cultural Thanksgiving Dishes

You know it!  I had to teach my Yankee husband all about it.  Can you imagine, he grew up eating pork and sauerkraut on New Year's Day!  Poor child........................

Now, he makes better corn bread than I make!!

Down East, where I hale from, we always had squash pie. This led to a famous quote from one of my cousins who said one Thanksgiving while eating a piece of pie " Is this squash pie or pumpkin pie? I hope it's pumpkin because I don't like squash."

 Being a "yankee" (as I'd never been called until I married into a southern family), Thanksgiving tradition was my mom's stuffing: Pepperidge Farm herb stuffing with apples, onions, celery & walnuts. I'm gonna miss that.... Still doing low carb 
Another thing my in-laws never heard of but I grew up on is green bean almondine. Really? Green Giant makes it. Very low-carb friendly!

Today when I was at the store I noticed all the people buying collard greens.   There was a discussion in the middle of the store about the best way to cook them.  I had to laugh.  My dad was raised on southern cooking, but my mom was not.  Collards were not served at our house.  One year my dad planted some in our garden.  He was so proud of the  greens he made.  They were horrible!  I tasted them a few years ago at a friends house and they were pretty good.  I think it must have been my dads cooking. 
Another thing that seems to be popular around here is Shoo Fly Pie.  My son had some at school the other day and it is now his favorite.  I  promised to try to find one for dinner this year so everyone could try it.

Our family is pretty traditional on Thanksgiving.  My aunt would always make the turkey and bread and the rest of us would bring the side dishes.  Coming from a large family we had lots of sides including scalloped potatoes, broccoli and rice casserole, stuffing, green bean casserole etc.  My mom always made this incredible cranberry raspberry salad.  It was a layered jello with raspberries, pineapple, and cranberries.  In between the layers was sour cream.  I remember vividly helping her make it the night before.  She would work all day and run to the store after school.  often she would have to go to several as they would be out of many of the traditional ingredients.  Then we would go to Wednesday night church.  She would start making the jello at 10 pm and we would be up all night waiting for the different layers of jello to harden.   it was well worth the effort.    My cousin would make a dozen different pies including 3 or 4 pumpkin pies.  Each one had different levels of spiciness. 

Both my aunt and mom are gone now, but I try to carry on their traditions.  It is part of what makes Thanksgiving special and makes me feel closer to them.

Thanks for the memories.  I am feeling very nostalgic now.

I'm a country girl through and through (born and raised in SW Georgia) and my family is West Indian so my thanksgiving dinner usually goes a little something like this...

Fried Turkey (yes...it's fried in peanut oil in a deep fryer on the deck and it's oh so yummy!!)
Ham
Curry Goat
Rice and Peas
Cornbread Dressing
Jerk Chicken
Mac and Cheese
Collard Greens
Green Bean Casserole
Potato Salad
Candied Yams
Sweet Potato Pie
Apple Pie
Red Velvet Cake
Succotash (tomatoes, corn, okra, and lima beans)
fried plantain
Sorrel Punch (the "adult" and the kiddie version)

Dinners as a kid always include about 20-25 of our relatives. Man...lots of happy memories!!!  Like Nikki...I've been on collard green detail since my granny taught me how to pick and wash them when I was about 5-6 years old.  Now I've "graduated" to cooking deserts and the dressing and my niece (who's 5) is the new collard green picker.  She just likes being in the kitchen with the adults and feeling like she's cooking...she hasn't realized yet that we're exploiting child labor...lol.