Thanksgiving food traditions

[Ky hills]

In my family growing up, both my grandmothers were widows and between them and my mother they put on quite a spread for Thanksgiving dinner, and Christmas dinner was pretty much the same.
We always had turkey and country ham, for the meat, most times for TG we'd have scalloped oysters too.
Homemade dressing made from biscuits and cornbread with chopped onions and broth from the turkey. Turkey gravy on the dressing and mashed potatoes.
Corn pudding, broccoli casserole, sweet potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce.
One of my grandmother's specialties was baked cushaw, she peeled it and baked it with some cream, butter, and brown sugar, it was as good as a desert, but served with the main meal.
My other grandmother was famous for her fruit salad. Bananas, canned pineapple chunks, fruit cocktail, little marshmallows, mixed in with a dressing of heavy whipping cream a little lemon juice and not sure if there was anything else or not, but it sure was good.
For desserts pecan pie, my grandmother's pumpkin pie, it was different than most peoples version of pumpkin pie, in that she made it like a crème pie it had a much softer lighter texture and she put a meringue on top.
Banana pudding was almost always served too.
For Christmas my mother always made jam cake, with a caramel like icing.
We used to make a lot of candy around Thanksgiving and Christmas chocolate fudge, chewy caramel, pull candy
It was my jobs to wrap the caramel candy, and to get the pull candy started because I could tolerate working with it sooner while it was still fairly hot.
I keep thinking I want to try to make some of those candy recipes. I helped with it but never did any of the preparation or cooking.

 

[coachg]

Sounds like an awesome memory! The kind I grew up with . My wife has been cooking for 2 days now for our dinner Sunday after church . Daughter and daughter in laws will bring a few side dishes but she does the turkey and ham. The dressing and sweet potato casserole. Pecan and sweet Tatter pie .

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

I am all French, both sides of family. Biggest difference our tradition was meat dressing. I had never tasted bread dressing until Kenny and I got married. His family had bread dressing.
Meat dressing is hamburg, ground pork, lots of sage, whip raw eggs into the mixture and bread crumbs.

 

[BFE]

Burnt pumpkin pie. It's actually not burnt. Very rich flavor.

 

[Ky hills]

Burnt pumpkin pie. It's actually not burnt. Very rich flavor.

My mother got a recipe from friends from southeastern KY for burnt sugar pie, best caramel pie I've ever had.

 

[BFE]

My mother got a recipe from friends from southeastern KY for burnt sugar pie, best caramel pie I've ever had.

My grandma would do a butterscotch pie, probably similar. If I remember correctly you bake it 2-3 times. Lots of work but so worth it. It had the burnt look to it.

 

[redcowsrule33]

My other grandmother was famous for her fruit salad. Bananas, canned pineapple chunks, fruit cocktail, little marshmallows, mixed in with a dressing of heavy whipping cream a little lemon juice and not sure if there was anything else or not, but it sure was good.

Does this look familiar?


Our family had a very similar recipe going back to my great grandmother. Biggest difference is fresh grapes with canned peaches, pears, and mandarin oranges instead of fruit cocktail. And the base is made with apple cider vinegar instead of lemon juice.

 

[Ky hills]

Does this look familiar?

View attachment 37521
Our family had a very similar recipe going back to my great grandmother. Biggest difference is fresh grapes with canned peaches, pears, and mandarin oranges instead of fruit cocktail. And the base is made with apple cider vinegar instead of lemon juice.

Yes that looks similar

 

[farmerjan]

We had creamed onions that my mom made... pearl onion sized in a white cream sauce... somewhat bland I guess but it was a tradition. Now I make them several times a year because I really liked them... "candied yams" was another "holiday tradition"....
Turkey and stuffing, and glazed ham, bone in (but not country ham), mashed potatoes, mashed Turnips that my grandfather liked and I would eat but not many others would touch them, bread stuffing, creamed onions, candied yams, green beans and usually peas for a couple that did not like gr beans..... cranberry sauce, soft dinner rolls, sweet pickles, and apple butter, and then there were apple, pumpkin, chocolate creme, and mince meat pies....
Mom made fudge... from scratch, recipe off the back of the Hershey's cocoa can... that was a special treat. Had to make it on a day that had low humidity... beat it til the gloss was off it, and get it into the square dish in a hurry because it would set up real fast once it was not glossy in the pan.... We made taffy one year...... remember pulling it....and peanut brittle.
Never had pecan pie til I moved south... still too sweet for me to eat much of... or sweet potato pie... I like that.

 

[EasTex]

Sounds delicious, making me hungry!

 

[farmerjan]

Recipe for the dressing for the fruit salad??? And for the baked cushaw ??? Is that like the green striped crenshaw winter squash? People here make "pumpkin pie" out of the crenshaw winter squash or some call it striped pumpkin....

 

[Ky hills]

We had creamed onions that my mom made... pearl onion sized in a white cream sauce... somewhat bland I guess but it was a tradition. Now I make them several times a year because I really liked them... "candied yams" was another "holiday tradition"....
Turkey and stuffing, and glazed ham, bone in (but not country ham), mashed potatoes, mashed Turnips that my grandfather liked and I would eat but not many others would touch them, bread stuffing, creamed onions, candied yams, green beans and usually peas for a couple that did not like gr beans..... cranberry sauce, soft dinner rolls, sweet pickles, and apple butter, and then there were apple, pumpkin, chocolate creme, and mince meat pies....
Mom made fudge... from scratch, recipe off the back of the Hershey's cocoa can... that was a special treat. Had to make it on a day that had low humidity... beat it til the gloss was off it, and get it into the square dish in a hurry because it would set up real fast once it was not glossy in the pan.... We made taffy one year...... remember pulling it....and peanut brittle.
Never had pecan pie til I moved south... still too sweet for me to eat much of... or sweet potato pie... I like that.

My grandmother would fix creamed onions, and my mother did sometimes too. I liked them.
That chocolate fudge sounds a lot like what my mother made. I never thought about it, but that's probably where she got her recipe from too.
My grandmother in my dads side was always making mince meat pie, I liked it but it wasn't necessarily my favorite as a child. I could eat my weight of her rice pudding though.

 

[Ky hills]

Recipe for the dressing for the fruit salad??? And for the baked cushaw ??? Is that like the green striped crenshaw winter squash? People here make "pumpkin pie" out of the crenshaw winter squash or some call it striped pumpkin....

Yes the baked cushaw was from green striped cushaws crooknecked winter squash there's other varieties too like white cushaw or orange stripe but back then they used the green striped cushaws. Funny thing is now most people think a cushaw is a gourd
My grandmother was always proud of her fruit salad and was very serious about making the dressin as she called it. Heavy whipping cream sone lemon juice not of anything else. The story was that she and her sisters always argued over how to make it and whether to stir or fold.

 

[sstterry]

My wife has been cooking for 2 days now for our dinner Sunday after church .

This is off-topic, but one year at our church for homecoming, we had a guest "evangelist" come in. Homecoming is a pretty big deal in our church and we had covered dishes for miles just waiting to be eaten. This "evangelist" decided he wanted to preach for almost 2 1/2 hours instead of our church's traditional one. He even preached about how the lord directed him on which shoes to buy.

I have never seen more watch-checking and heavy sighs from a congregation in my life. Particularly, the ladies in the kitchen were peeved, trying to keep things warm.

He was never invited back.

 

[coachg]

We had a missionary from Africa a couple of Sundays ago ; he went over about 45 minutes. My wife and I had left right after Sunday School so we missed it . We had 2 family things to attend so we had to leave early. I heard a lot of grumbling from the folks who stayed .

 

[Ky hills]

I used to go to a church that we were out at or a few minutes before 12 every Sunday. It amounted to a little over 30 minutes of actual preaching time. I jokingly said that there was either a secret trap door behind the podium or a couple of deacons would had a long shepherd's hook that they would pull the preacher away from the podium with if he went a minute over.
The church we attend now, is very different, there is at least an hour of preaching usually a longer, then we have a time of prayer requests and praises afterwards. It's 12:30 at the earliest that we get out, generally something to 1:00 especially if there is any talking afterwards.
It's kind of a good hearted running joke about the length of service. It doesn't bother any of us.
Usually if we have a guest preacher, the service is shorter.
If we have a function with a meal after service then the preacher is mindful of the kitchen crew. We have what is unofficially officially referred to as a Church Mama who is is in charge of the kitchen crew and she runs a tight ship and she does a pretty good job of keeping everybody straight.

 

[BFE]

My great grandpa was an old fashioned Missionary Baptist preacher, you didn't fall asleep in his sermons. If he seen a sleeper he would slam his Bible down on the pulpit as a wake up call.

His wife, a fiery little woman, always said any preacher who took more than 15 minutes to get it said wasn't worth his salt. I mostly agree, there's a lot of rabbit chasing goes on, too long a sermon loses people generally.

 

[Ky hills]

I've seen a lot of rabbit chasing in different churches, from some preachers. We go to a Southern Baptist Church, I've known of our preacher since we were in high school, he has a heart for ministry and does a good job. He makes a sermon outline with fill in the blanks so people can follow along. He does a lot of sermon series on various books of the Bible.
Some times there may be a sermon from just a few verses and sometimes a few chapters.

 

[redcowsrule33]

Recipe for the fruit salad is stored intracranially. If I can get it on paper in an understandable form I will send it to you!

 

[Little Joe]

My great grandpa was an old fashioned Missionary Baptist preacher, you didn't fall asleep in his sermons. If he seen a sleeper he would slam his Bible down on the pulpit as a wake up call.

His wife, a fiery little woman, always said any preacher who took more than 15 minutes to get it said wasn't worth his salt. I mostly agree, there's a lot of rabbit chasing goes on, too long a sermon loses people generally.

I agree, if a sermon goes too long or down too many rabbit trails I get lost or lose interest. We went to church previously that started at worship at 10, preaching around 10:45 and wouldn't let out until a little after 12 or maybe 12 if you were lucky. I just couldn't follow along for that long most of the time. Preacher's messages were good but went into a lot of detail and dug deep into the history of what he was preaching, more like a Bible study than a sermon but there was nothing on paper to follow along with so I would get lost in the details. Church I now attend runs about an hour and 15 minutes total, has bullet points on a card and fill in blanks and a place to take notes, easier for me to follow.