UNPOPULAR OPINIONS, Thanksgiving edition

[SierraBBQGuy]

I absolutely love Thanksgiving. My favorite holiday. It’s about family and friends and gathering together over a great meal, not commercialized and all about "what did I get" like Christmas.

My unpopular opinion is that Thanksgiving is way better than Christmas :-)

As far as the food, I love turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy. I regularly cook that meal for Stacy and I except that I cook a chicken because cooking a turkey for two people seems a bit crazy.

ANother unpopular opinion — I love holiday jello salad … as long as there’s no cottage cheese in it.

Another unpopular opinion - I don’t give rat’s **s about football on thanksgiving. And no, the Cowboy’s are not America’s team, either.

:-)

I agree with all this, I would make this stuff through out the year, if I could handle the carbs. I make turkey often. Oh and the Packers are the true America’s team. LOL

[Murdy]

If they're not, they should be.

[Starsky]

I don't mind cooking the meal but I don't appreciate backseat drivers. To be honest most of the family wouldn't know a well prepared bird if it stood up and slapped them in the face. I'd love to be more experimental with flavors and preparation but I can't. Can you believe there's even those who don't like smoked turkey? Thank God for bourbon

[Panhead John]

True dat my friend!

[smokin fool]

YESSS!!!!
Backseat drivers are the bane of all holidays in the kitchen, gotta help, this is how I do it, don't do that do this.
My dingbat SIL who in her zeal to clean dumped my pan gravy dripping so she could wash the pan then ragged about how the canned gravy and how it would never be served at her table.
She got told, I slept alone for a week or so and we never hosted again....

[SierraBBQGuy]

I don't mind cooking the meal but I don't appreciate backseat drivers. To be honest most of the family wouldn't know a well prepared bird if it stood up and slapped them in the face. I'd love to be more experimental with flavors and preparation but I can't. Can you believe there's even those who don't like smoked turkey? Thank God for bourbon

and a good cigar!

[smokin fool]

Red wine and a joint....

[Bbqmikeg]

Before I got married, I’d cook the holy-trinity, (turkey, rib roast, and ham) on the Webers, but now we eat the sister-in-law’s turkey-in-a-bag. Might as well boil it.

[Huskee]

I struggle with "everyone always does this so I must as well". For me this applies to a lot of things really.

[Beefchop]

Lol. If we only had a word for those common things we do that bind, define, and unite us as a culture...

[klflowers]

I absolutely love Thanksgiving. I grew up with a very large extended family where everyone could cook. No dry turkeys, no green bean casserole. No pumpkin pie - I despise pumpkin pie. Great roasted or smoked turkey, moist cornbread dressing, collard or turnip greens, mashed or scalloped potatoes, cranberry sauce out of the can. Sweet potato pie, apple pie, peach cobbler, bananna pudding. It was eat too much, take a nap watching my Detroit Lions lose, wake up and eat some more.

Most of my aunts and uncles have passed away and the family is scattered throughout the country now so we don't have the great holiday gatherings that we used to, but i still get to visit my mom, sister, niece and a few cousins. My son lives about a mile away so he joins us. And we still cook way too much and eat ourselves into comas. Plus, I like smoked turkey and I do one every couple of months anyway, and I usually have a couple more Thanksgiving type meals throughout the year.

[Andrrr]

" It was eat too much, take a nap watching my Detroit Lions lose, wake up and eat some more."

I’d say that’s one of the more accurate descriptions of thanksgiving so far!

[ecowper]

Nothing wrong with good green bean casserole. And the ladies in my family could make it good. I would do it myself, but too many people don’t want it that I don’t.

When I was a kid, like you, I had a huge, extended family that lived close enough for holiday meals on a regular basis. My great grandparents would routinely have 70-100 people in their little farmhouse and backyard (maybe 1000 square feet) for thanksgiving. It was absolutely amazing.

[Old Glory]

Why the Pumpkin Pie hate? I love homemade Pumpkin Pie with whipped cream.

Pecan is to sweet for me. Apple is meh. Custard pie is good. A good coconut cream is great!

[Old Glory]

klflowers I made a sweet potato pie once. They are really good!

[shify]

Pies, and all desserts, just take up space that can be otherwise filled by more turkey, stuffing waffles or scotch (or all of the above)

[klflowers]

shify scotch, bourbon, beer yep

[Grillin Dad]

Our family loves the thanksgiving meal … so much so that I buy as many turkeys as possible this time of year (I’m currently up to 9, hoping to hit double digits before we leave for my sister’s on Wednesday). My favorite side has to be the cranberry sauce, hands down. I almost can’t have turkey without cranberries. I cook a pretty mean roast turkey in the winter and in the summer, I smoke it on my kettle’s rotisserie. I like a wet brine for a moister turkey and a dry brine for a more flavor. My dad is handing his turkey deep fryer down to me this year, can’t wait.

To me, thanksgiving is the best of all American holidays, hands down. It’s everything that Christmas claims to be, but can’t pull off (but’s that’s for another ‘unpopular opinion’ post entirely). I’ll defend that position with anyone.

And I love football on Thanksgiving. If nothing else, it’s a distraction from family that you otherwise can’t stand to be around.

[Irishpete33]

My unpopular opinion is that I like box stuffing (Bell’s is our usual, but sometimes Stovetop) better than most homemade stuffings. This opinion has a one exception:

My grandmother’s homemade stuffing was the absolute best. She’s save the ends of bread for months and didn’t discriminate: white, wheat, Italian bread from the Bronx (I grew up close enough for our local markets to get fresh loaves every day). There was also a step of wetting the bread and wringing it dry. She also made bacon and used the crumbled bacon and the drippings in the stuffing. Anyway, it was the best side dish at thanksgiving or any other meal (we lived in the same house so she did a lot of the cooking for my childhood) and hasn’t been duplicated since she passed away. I tried once; it came out so bad I think I gave myself food poisoning (not too sure on that, it was before I discovered amazingribs.com so maybe I made too many food safety faux pas….)

But I digress….prepare the box stuffing with homemade stock, some onions and celery, add a few eggs and make "muffings" a la Meathead’s method and I will eat those things for Thanksgiving dinner, breakfast the next morning , and every other meal until they’re gone!

Also, I realize that I should be calling this "dressing" but old habits die hard…and I’ve stumbled upon another unpopular opinion: dressing to me is Thousand Island or Ranch….stuffing is a coma-inducing bread-based product whether it is cooked inside or outside of the bird.

[ecowper]

I learned to make stuffing from my grandmother. If I don’t have the time to do that, I like boxed stuffing just fine.

[smokin fool]

My grand father cooked for lumber camps in the Mirimishi ever winter his homemade "stoggin" was to die for. Served with gallons of gravy.
If there was a stoggin recipe left with someone in the family I'd love to get a copy of it.

[PBCDad]

You guys are all a bunch of extroverts. I like cooking for others, and I don't have big issues with family members and politics (there are some issues but I don't engage), but I don't like events where I have to spend hours talking to other people. I usually try to find some excuse to run off to the kitchen or somewhere else for as long as I can.

I'm lucky that my wife feels similar and understands, but we still have to put on the event.

Oh and not a fan of turkey, but since joining here and taking over cooking it's been a lot better than the sawdust my mom would make each year. I love mashed potatoes and gravy and stuffing though.

[Draznnl]

As a fellow introvert, I feel your pain. It's one reason I love grilling and barbecuing. Everyone else is inside partying away and I can head out to take care of the meat or tend to the smoker (whatever that means when using a pellet pooper).

[dshaffes]

I cook smoked Turkey about 5-6 times a year. We call it Thanksgiving in Feb, May, July etc… and always have mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce and roasted green beans. However, I’ll usually cook just the breast during the fake Thanksgiving meals, but always the full bird at least 2x’s per year. Also, whenever I go to a BBQ restaurant and Turkey is on the menu, it’s always one of the selections along with the other traditional ribs and brisket.

[Beefchop]

Wish I could help! Thanksgiving is one my favorite holidays and I love the food. Having it once a year makes it all the more special.

[grantgallagher]

No turkey for us this year. Nobody really likes it and we end up pushing it around the plate. This year im smoking a chicken and making shepherds pie for the mains. Its about the company

[ecowper]

Hmmmmmm, if you like smoked chicken I have a hard time understanding not liking smoked turkey? They flavor profiles are pretty similar and it really comes down to cooking technique for the much larger bird? Am I missing something?

[grantgallagher]

I should have said my wife doesnt like turkey. I dont mind it. As to why she likes chicken but not turkey…i dont ask such questions

[smokin fool]

Yeah, some questions should remain unasked for the longevity and sanctity of marriage.

[Bruceski44]

Unless your menu includes Indian Corn, it cannot be called traditional.

Using Fuji apples in your apple pie is un-American. We don't say "It's as Japanese-American as apple pie."

Ben Franklin wanted to make the turkey our official bird, instead of the bald eagle.

Turducken is a gluttonous abomination.

I hate sweet potatoes. And yams. And marshmallows.

Brown sugar is racist. That's why the Rolling Stones won't play it anymore.

Putting cheese on mashed potatoes is a cowspiracy.

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is a lot of hot air.

Why do the Lions and Cowboys get to play on Thansgiving every year? Shouldn't we insist on good teams?

If people come to your house to eat your food, they should agree with your politics, your religion, your choice of beer and even agree with your choice of cars. Or get out.

Why are my neighborhood streets always full of cars every Thanksgiving? Where do they all come from? Is there some city with no cars, because they all came to my neighborhood?

More footballs are tossed on Thanksgiving than any other day. It's the equivalent of one million flying pigs. More cookies are tossed on New Year's Day or spring break.

[Bkhuna]

Yankee style mac & cheese is the worst. The only mac & cheese is Southern custard-style baked macaroni and cheese with eggs, butter and evaporated milk. Everything else is just cheese sauce with boiled pasta.

This is what it should looked like after it's baked. Not my photo.

[CandySueQ]

Got a request for this for Thanksgiving. Goes well with ham.

[Wedunne]

That's how my wife makes it. 😋