Turkey is dry

Found the guy who doesn’t know how to cook a turkey.

…I mean, neither do I. But I’ve never had dry turkey either. One of it’s defining characteristics is that it’s moist.

Cranberry sauce is awful.

That depends. I’ve had awful cranberry sauce, and I’ve had good cranberry sauce. Also, I do love that jellatin blob that comes in a can.

Not only does dressing (stuffing) look unappealing it also tastes just as bad.

WHO IS PREPARING THIS FOOD FOR YOU, AND WHY ARE THEY SOOOOO BAD AT IT???

And pumpkin pie could be better.

Eh, fair enough. It really depends on how flavorful the pumpkins were. I’ve had bland pie before. Try adding whipped cream.

Casserole and mash potatoes are alright but nothing to just find over.

Casserole is disgusting, but thanksgiving mashed potatoes are the second best food all year (number one is turkey).

The 4th of July is the superior holiday in terms of food.

4th of july is hot dogs, cheeseburgers, and potato chips. You can have that literally ANY time of the year!

This isn’t about the food being bad, this is about your family being bad cooks.

Sounds like you need to learn how to cook.

This post is such a skill issue it’s crazy. Get some gravy on the turkey, make some cranberry sauce and stuffing from scratch, and get some pie variety if you’re not a fan of pumpkin. Casserole and mash potatoes are mid, agree, and good mac and cheese is godly regardless of the time of year.

You’re doing it wrong. It sounds like you’re following some goofy rules about what Thanksgiving is supposed to be.

Turkey? Yeah, sure, we’ll have one. Ours wears a woven blanket made of bacon to cook. Never had it come out dry.

Ham too, why not. Lasagna, of course. Crab cakes, definitely. Maybe a beef roast or ribs.

Sides? No fewer than 12. Chestnut stuffing, potato filling, green beans, roasted potatoes, caprese salad, broccoli, asparagus, etc.

Desserts. Should be four or five. Pumpkin pie (don’t like it? Good. I wanted it all anyway). Cherry pie. Apple pie. Blueberry pie, chocolate cream roll, ice cream, etc.

Based on your description, whoever is cooking your food doesn’t know how to do it right. It’s not like Thanksgiving requires you to cook everything wrong.

Upvote for unpopular, and I totally disagree. I haven’t had a dry turkey since I was a kid and my parents were still young. Stuffing, mash potatoes, and green bean casserole to me are like comfort food. Our family also does candied yams, devilled eggs, ham, bacon-wrapped asparagus, homemade dinner rolls, and all sorts of deliciousness.

Man, this is a great post. Full on unpopular, no matter how you look at it. Kudos on that! Also, good on you for not making it a rant about other people’s preferences.

Any way, that aside, I don’t disagree with you, though I think your points are off as to why Thanksgiving food is overrated.

First, a lot of what you’re using as a basis for that is down to the specific foods being cooked well. Any of those things that are made from good ingredients and is tbhen well executed are phenomenal. Others have covered that already, and the bit about turkeys being horribly bred, and treated even worse while alive.

So, moving on to why I tend to agree with you.

Thanksgiving food is nostalgia. It isn’t about the food at all, it’s about having a tradition. This means that you have people making things that they don’t practice much in a time crunch, with the real effort going into making it a Thanksgiving meal, rather than a good meal they’re able to execute well.

Turkey, as the perfect example. How often do you cook a whole turkey? Once, maybe twice a year for the vast majority. But it can take dozens of tries to get a dish right the first time. And it might take longer to be reliable with it, depending on the complexity of the dish.

Of course Thanksgiving turkey is overrated, people aren’t happy with it because it’s great, it’s the tradition. So they ignore the fact that it’s actually a difficult thing to execute well, and that most turkey you can buy is crappy turkey because it isn’t important.

About the only thing in your list that isn’t harder to get right than the average dish is mashed potatoes. Frankly, if you’ve only had mashed potatoes that are alright, in your words, chances are that whoever cooked the rest did a mid tier job on those too. Mashed potatoes are freaking bomb when done well, and they aren’t hard to do well.

So I’m with you, Thanksgiving food is very overrated, but mainly because they’re difficult foods that aren’t practiced outside of the holidays. The foods themselves, done well, are amazing.

You need to try a deep fried turkey that’s been injected with seasoning. And maybe try other people’s sides whoever has been making your food sounds awful at cooking

For what it’s worth, it depends so much on whether or not the meal is done justice by a proper cook. It’s a tall order, and loads of folks cooking it are just doing their best.

That being said, shit is phenomenal when it’s done justice. I was quite lucky to live in the household with the best spread of all time. Ma’s t-day feast is undefeated.

Talking crisp-skinned juicy bird with balanced herbs and seasoning. Fully homemade roasted stuffing with crispy bits and sausage, a jealously guarded family recipe. Fresh homemade cranberry sauce two-ways cause both versions too damn good to skip either. Spuds with gravy made from them bird-veg roast drippings – most valuable juice on the planet. Homemade lefste. Cranberry upside down cake, or like pumpkin cheesecake, the works.

Just got really excited for Fall ngl…

For me, DEFINITELY an unpopular opinion, but for obvious reasons I’m biased af. (Don’t even get me started on the other holidays)

Best part of thanksgiving is the leftover turkey sandiwches

I love turkey, but I’ve never had a turkey come out dry. Mother brines hers, I just baste it and mine is also nice.

Cranberry sauce is delicious but I home can that in advance, cranberry orange thing. Very tasty.

Overall I’d probably pick chicken being easier to cook, but the turkey is not bad and oh man cold turkey sandwiches later are just easy lazy meals for me.

Separate the breast from the dark meat and cook to different times. Reassemble on the cutting board. Enjoy perfect turkey.

Alternative: oven the breast and confit the dark meat with rosemary and garlic. You do it once a year so why not go the extra mile? Leftover confit meat can be made into ravioli filling.

You’ve just been subjected to bad Thanksgiving food.

Turkey is a bit of a problem because the birds have been bred to have giant breasts and can’t even reproduce on their own. You pretty much have to dry brine them to get decent flavor. To always get a moist bird, use a meat thermometer. Also, go for the dark meat. It’s always better than the light meat.

Fresh cranberry sauce is awesome. Keyword being fresh. It’s just cranberries, sugar, and little bit of water that you cook down for about 10-20 minutes. Make it the night before then spread that on some fresh cornbread.

Stuffing depends on the aromatics. Add some sauted onion and celery then some mushrooms or cooked italian sausage. And one more thing: cook the bread in a lot of butter.

Pumpkin pie tends to be on the dense side and pumpkin by itself doesn’t have much flavor. Most of what we think of as pumpkin pie flavor comes from the spices: cinnamon, nutmeg, and a tiny bit of ground ginger. Homemade is better, but a lot of work. It requires roasting pumpkin, making the pie crust from scratch, and then essentially making a pumpkin custard for the filling. Worth doing at least once. It comes out nice and light instead of dense like the canned and premade stuff.

Casserole is always hit or miss. Aunt Caroline’s recipe is either good or a nightmare.

Mash potatoes, it depends on how you dress them up. You can rice them with some cream and butter to make them nice and smooth. Or use red potatoes for something more rustic along with some cheddar cheese or bacon.

I’ve never heard of mac and cheese for thanksgiving. There are so many better dishes that can be made. Who’s cooking your thanksgiving dinner? Do they even know how to cook? And where’s the gravy? You can make a nice rich gravy from the turkey drippings.

One Thanksgiving my housemates and I all realized none of us were going home for Thanksgiving, and the richest of us offered to buy whatever I needed to make a proper Thanksgiving meal. I agreed on the condition that the kitchen was off limits to everyone except me the day before, and day of until 2:00 pm. They agreed.

I spent the better part of two days making the turkey, stuffing, four different potato dishes, (mashed potatoes, potato salad, au gratin potatoes and baked yams) turkey and beef gravy, green bean and ham hock casserole, mac and cheese, a pumpkin pie, a strawberry pie, a mince meat pie, and cranberry sauce. All from scratch, exept the pie crusts. That’s just unnecessary outside of competitive cooking.

They actually left me alone to cook, for the first time ever, and everything came out perfectly. I loaded up my plate, and decided to take a walk when I heard the benefactor of the meal pick up his phone, call someone, and say “Hey Grandma, happy Thanksgiving. Did you know that you can cook a turkey and have the breast be moist?”

Got pissed at one of them because he didn’t eat anything but the pies, and I was the only person that got any of the pies. Didn’t even get a piece of the strawberry pie. I made homemade whipped cream for that thing too!

This was over a decade ago, and yes, I’m still salty about that.