Thanksgiving

[NowhereMan]

Falconeer, weighing in on your initial worry rather than what to do for Thanksgiving (silly colonial holiday, who eats sweet potato with marshmallow? Fiends that's who!) it's possible to have fun on a holiday by ignoring the darker history that holiday may have. Guy Fawkes day in Britain is pretty much a celebration of destroying a Catholic plot and a massive propaganda tool that celebrated burning Catholics at stakes by the Jacobite monarchy. I'm a Catholic and frankly can't think of a single person who's ever been offended by Guy Fawkes day (except for those pricks somewhere that burn an effigy of the Pope every year, do not know why they carried on with that one). It's an excuse to light bonfires and have fireworks, don't put any more thought into it than that. The history of the holiday needn't be important so long as it gives you an excuse (or reason) to spend time with people you love and indulge. Hell divorce it from it's sordid past and make no reference to America even, just use it as an opportunity to give thanks for family food and an appropriate sport of your choice (really people, if he stays up to watch handegg he won't be eating till 3am).

[Murgos]

Meh, if he wants to get hung up on internet illiterati propaganda then anything you say here isn't going to stop him.

Hey, some people shared some food with some lost and hungry colonists and to commemorate that we celebrate with a day of thanks for all that we love in life.

That then, over the next 4 or 500 years, other shit happened really has nothing to do with it.

[Bunk]

Falconeer - would it make you feel better if I mentioned that my great Grandmother was a full blooded native, and we still celebrate Thanksgiving?

That quote you posted sounds like something you'd find on the same site about how Halloween candy is cursed by a coven of witches.

Yes, the colonization of the new world (hell, pretty much the colonization of everywhere in the world that was colonized) included behaviour that we are now ashamed of, but hey - all we can do now is try to prevent that kind of thing from recurring.

My understanding of American Thanksgiving (Canadians celibrate it in Oct, on the day Collumbus landed) is that it is meant as a re-enactment of a big feast between the Pilgrims and some natives. In other words, celebrating the good times between the two peoples - before they started butchering one another.

I like canned cranberry sauce. Especially if it plops out in to the bowl like a congealed red monolith  

[Nebu]

I like canned cranberry sauce. Especially if it plops out in to the bowl like a congealed red monolith  

Craisins.   

Forget that silly canned stuff. 

[Yegolev]

Cranberry sauce needs to die in a car fire.

SUP BITCHES WE GONNA BURN DOWN THE CRANBERRY SAUCE FACTORY TONITE - -  R U IN MOTHERFUCKER ??

I did forget pecan pie.  In fact, the entire pie family was absent, particularly apple and peach.  Mind you, most of that list was what we had all at once.

Yes, everyone please remember the holiday (south of Canada) is about the Indians helping the Pilgrims not entirely die off during their first winter.  So, you can think about that as a posthumous 'screw you' from them.

[rattran]

Nothing beats fresh ripe cranberries, and few things are worse than the nuggets of unjoy Ocean Spray has foisted on the nation as cranberries. Even that canned jellied stuff is better than people's attempts at homemade using underripe bitter old berries.

[Engels]

My understanding of American Thanksgiving (Canadians celibrate it in Oct, on the day Collumbus landed) is that it is meant as a re-enactment of a big feast between the Pilgrims and some natives. In other words, celebrating the good times between the two peoples - before they started butchering one another.

This. Even if the event upon which it is based is entirely historically inaccurate, the myth is the important part. Somewhere, at some point, European colonists didn't immediately butcher the natives, and maybe even treated them as people. Unlikely, sure, but it may have happened sometime, somewhere.

[Ard]

If you don't watch football on Thanksgiving, you might as well skip the gravy and move to California with the other weirdos.

Oh shit, that's me literally, but I like gravy.

[NowhereMan]

Actually initially the colonists did indeed get one fairly well with the natives, partly because they really didn't have any reason not to (unlike the Conquistadors most colonists didn't turn up with the attitude of, "Ah ha! This is all ours and now we shall start shooting you!" The pilgrims weren't first Europeans to arrive in America, hell one of the first Indians to greet the pilgrims spoke English having actually spent several years over there (he went over with some traders and eventually returned). Slavery wasn't really practised then (at least not by most Northern Europeans) so they weren't kidnapping people or anything. It wasn't until 50/100 years later that Europeans were established enough and felt the need to expand/claim to the land that they started really clashing with the natives.

[Numtini]

Nothing beats fresh ripe cranberries, and few things are worse than the nuggets of unjoy Ocean Spray has foisted on the nation as cranberries. Even that canned jellied stuff is better than people's attempts at homemade using underripe bitter old berries.

Really? The Ocean Spray baggies are not really that different from the local brand except they're more expensive.

[Cadaverine]

Ham.

And Musselmans Red Spice Apple Rings.  Fuck cranberry sauce in it's ear.

[Pennilenko]

Cranberry sauce needs to die in a car fire.  If Satan had to bring a dish to Thanksgiving dinner, that's what he'd bring.

You are not fucking human.

[Evildrider]

Nothing beats fresh ripe cranberries, and few things are worse than the nuggets of unjoy Ocean Spray has foisted on the nation as cranberries. Even that canned jellied stuff is better than people's attempts at homemade using underripe bitter old berries.

Really? The Ocean Spray baggies are not really that different from the local brand except they're more expensive.

Huh?  You can find cranberries NOT from Ocean Spray?  Lies.

[Nevermore]

I like canned cranberry sauce. Especially if it plops out in to the bowl like a congealed red monolith  

That's not 'sauce', that's Jello.

[Evildrider]

We are Filipino's and we've always celebrated Thanksgiving.  For us its mainly a time of the year where we all try to get together for a huge family meal.

We even pretty much eat all the traditional stuff.  Like we always have:

Turkey
Ham
Stuffing (sausage and corn bread)
Homemade cranberry sauce
Green Bean Casserole
Mashed potatos
Corn Casserole
Roasted Sweet Potato w/maple syrup glaze
And assorted pies (pumpkin, cherry, pecan)

[Pennilenko]

We are Filipino's and we've always celebrated Thanksgiving.  For us its mainly a time of the year where we all try to get together for a huge family meal.

We even pretty much eat all the traditional stuff.  Like we always have:

Turkey
Ham
Stuffing (sausage and corn bread)
Homemade cranberry sauce
Green Bean Casserole
Mashed potatos
Corn Casserole
Roasted Sweet Potato w/maple syrup glaze
And assorted pies (pumpkin, cherry, pecan)

But some Filipino food is fricken awesome and should be added to that list.

[Evildrider]

We are Filipino's and we've always celebrated Thanksgiving.  For us its mainly a time of the year where we all try to get together for a huge family meal.

We even pretty much eat all the traditional stuff.  Like we always have:

Turkey
Ham
Stuffing (sausage and corn bread)
Homemade cranberry sauce
Green Bean Casserole
Mashed potatos
Corn Casserole
Roasted Sweet Potato w/maple syrup glaze
And assorted pies (pumpkin, cherry, pecan)

But some Filipino food is fricken awesome and should be added to that list.

Haha, we eat that all year long.

[Nerf]

I'm going to try to convince the family to deep-fry the turkey this year, it's supposed to make it incredibly moist and delicious.  Top that with stuffing, homeade gravy, sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top, rolls, and a 2-day coma, it should be a good thanksgiving.

On the Indian shit:

You can't really lump them all together, there were so many different tribes of native americans that had vastly different cultures trying to lump all of them together would be akin to lumping an entire continent together.  In Texas alone, there were 4 or 5 /vastly/ different cultures of native americans in the 1800s, treating them all the same is just as offensive to the peaceful hunter-gatherer types that lived in the brushland in the south as it is to the various brutal fucking tribes that roamed the plains.  It's hard to find sympathy for a tribe that regularly kidnapped, raped, and tortured people just for being there.  One of the favorite methods of torture of the plains indians of texas was to cut a small incision in the gut, pull out a length of intestine, and stake it (and the person) to the ground, so that the various scavenger animals would come and literally pull them apart from the inside before eating the rest.

[Ingmar]

Deep frying is OK, but if you really want it to be good you should be brining it and smoking it imo.

[Evildrider]

Deep fried turkey is EXCELLENT.  However it's pretty damn dangerous.  Our first attempt didn't go all that awesome. 

Also it lets you cook a 15ish pound turkey in like an hour.

[MahrinSkel]

As has come up in a few politics threads, I have a chunk of Native American blood and sometimes identify that way.  But the Thanksgiving/Columbus Day guilt trip is not something I go for.  Outside of the Italian-American community nobody gives a shit about Columbus Day, and Thanksgiving's ritual observations of family and acceptance of your good fortune are a good thing regardless of their mythical origins.  Have the turkey and trimmings, be thankful for the good things in your life, and let the activists find something *useful* to do.

--Dave

[Nerf]

We'll definitely be doing it outside if we do, all of the "we burned our house down" stories are a damned good reason to not attempt it on the stove.

[Pennilenko]

We'll definitely be doing it outside if we do, all of the "we burned our house down" stories are a damned good reason to not attempt it on the stove.

Make sure it is thawed for at least 24 hours. Frozen turkeys = bomb when dropped into the fryer. Even with proper thawing it is still dangerous. My step grandfather has done deep fried turkeys for as long as i can remember, and even with his preparation and skill, i remember a couple fireballs in the back yard.

[Samwise]

We have a big Thanksgiving lunch each year at work and we always deep fry a bunch of turkeys because it's the fastest and easiest way to cook turkey without having a real kitchen.  It's always done outside, which seems to me like the only sane way to do it.

The final result isn't that different from oven-roasted turkey; maybe a little moister since all the juice is locked in.  The one thing I don't love about it is that the skin becomes inedible (it gets too crispy and tough to chew).

[Bunk]

I like canned cranberry sauce. Especially if it plops out in to the bowl like a congealed red monolith  

That's not 'sauce', that's Jello.

and... is that a bad thing?

When is jello ever a bad thing?

[NowhereMan]

But why would you have turkey when you could have goose instead? Then you can also have goose soup, and goose fat to roast potatoes with and cook all sorts of other foods with. Why? Why?!

[Rasix]

Point me to the nearest goose, shopkeep.

[Ingmar]

But why would you have turkey when you could have goose instead? Then you can also have goose soup, and goose fat to roast potatoes with and cook all sorts of other foods with. Why? Why?!

Ha ha, it's funny that you think Americans are willing to try new food.

I *love* goose, but it is hard to find here, harder to work with than turkey cooking-wise, and also lacks the whole connection to the 'original' event that turkey theoretically has.

If we have it here at all, it is more of a Christmas thing, or something you see on a high end restaurant menu. Duck is more common but still not very common.

[Oban]

If Satan came to dinner he would cook the Turkey, because there is nothing worse than dry turkey meat.

[Ingmar]

If Satan came to dinner he would cook the Turkey, because there is nothing worse than dry turkey meat.

That is why you must brine!

[NowhereMan]

Point me to the nearest goose, shopkeep.

Haven't you read Dickens? You stick your head out the window and yell at any passing kid to fetch you the biggest goose from the butcher. See literature can teach lessons, feel free to use this example if kids ever ask you why they should read the classics.

[Trippy]

We'll definitely be doing it outside if we do, all of the "we burned our house down" stories are a damned good reason to not attempt it on the stove.

Try to find and watch the "Good Eats" episode on this. Alton setup this special rig to lower the turkey into the fryer.

[Falconeer]

I'll post pictures of our very Italian and not-so-American turkey then. Please keep in mind that finding the right stuff to cook "American" is hell here. The friend who tried to do chilli for superbowl in 2008 gave up and left the supermarket in tears, and everything we have here, including broth, has just been branded "different" by the thanksgiving girl. I'm sure it'll be delicious (she is an amazing cook), but absolutely blasphemous.

[WayAbvPar]

Heh I have seen AB's deep fried turkey episode a couple of times. He goes a bit overboard, but it is a good setup.

I only have a bit of turkey during Thanksgiving dinner. I do most of my turkey consumption over the extended weekend in the form of delicious turkey sandwiches. Complete with cranberries and stuffing when available.

[Merusk]

REAL Cranberry sauce (with no goddamn orange peels in it!) is a fantastic treat that I look forward to every year. My mom makes awesome sauce, but always complains about how long it takes in that mom way.  You know the one, where you offer to make it if she'd give you the recipe but she sighs and says "No, I'll do it." 

Our two other traditional every-year dishes are orange jello w/ sherbet mixed-in and lime jello with cream cheese.  Delicious.   The rest we mix up. Some years we have turkey, some we have prime rib. I think we had duck one year.