 Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic is a Bay Area writer and editor. Her first book Suffering Succotash: A Picky Eater's Quest to Understand Why We Hate the Foods We Hate, is a humorous non-fiction narrative and exposé on the lives of picky eaters. She previously coerced Anderson Cooper to overcome his dining issues and told us the most scientifically delicious snack shape. In my years-long quest to put my picky eating into remission, I'm proud to say that I had a list of once-hated green vegetables jockeying for attention at my Thanksgiving table this year. The two that won out are okra (simply sautéed and salted to perfection) and Brussels sprouts, which will be peeled down to individual leaves, sautéed with garlic, then gilded with a balsamic vinaigrette and a smattering of walnuts to comprise a warm salad. However, there are still some turkey day foods out there that get my gorge a-rising and chief among them is that Thanksgiving staple of my Minnesota childhood: green bean casserole. “They’re for the crunch!” someone once told me. You want crunch? How about, oh I don’t know, not cooking the green beans denture-soft‽ Now the grey-green beans in this dish are bad enough, but it was truly all over for me the first time I got a look at the secret ingredient keeping its gelatinous shape after it had been slurped out of the can and into the waiting saucepan. Note to special effects folks: nothing looks so much like actual barf than a cold can of mushroom soup, it’s got chunks and everything! (I'm also not the biggest fan of pumpkin pie ever since my older sister likened it to cat vomit but I am a kind host, so it will be there for the guest who adores it.) What's the Thanksgiving dish you simply dread? Please share your tales of taste and texture traumas in the comments below and we'll share them in an upcoming post. Previously - The psychology of food aversions and Food aversions: Your questions answered and A five-step plan for overcoming picky eating (a.k.a. an open letter to Anderson Cooper) All our best Thanksgiving advice and recipes |
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Mince meat pie, hands down...Ick
Mince pie is my absolute favorite! Oh well, different strokes...
I know i wont be popular for saying so but white turkey meat is awful. It's dry and tasteless. I dont understand why people don't love the thighs...rich and tasty, melts in your mouth, delicious! And of course marshmallows on sweet potatoes..It's just wrong!
You are absolutely right. And to think that it's more expensive than dark meat. Turkey breast is just a vehicle for gravy.
If you're determining doneness by the little white popup thingy, the turkey will come out overcooked and horrible. If you use a remote probe and also brine the turkey, it will be awesome.
well who ever has been cooking the bird doesn't know what they are doing.
Learn to cook a turkey correctly and white meat is juicy and tasty. Same with sweet potatoes and marshmallows... has to be done right, or yeah, it's not so good.
The way to avoid this is to debone the turkey and cook the breast (white meat) separately and for less time. It cooks much quicker so cook it to 150 degrees or it will be dry. Thighs can go 160. Use the raw bones to make a stock that will make the best home-made gray you will ever have.
The only thing I don't like besides green bean casserole is salad. We eat salad almost every day of the year so the three big holidays are NO salad. Happy Thanksgiving!
My father in law asked me to gt all his kids over to his house or Thxgvng...and cook. I managed the first part (my wife's sibs have daddy issues) bu now I have to compete with an 80 year old for oven time. Lets just say 80 year old "Ma" is a bland and frozen/canned kind of cook. Has watched me cook and been passive aggressive at my home...now I'm in her kitchen...so I dread anything she is cooking. Apparently she cooked it ll a week ago and is just going to reheat.... Hence I am making 7 dishes for those who don't like 1960s broccoli casserole and Millionare pie (think foamy ambrosia salad frozen in a terrible cheap premade crust). At least she's nice...oh wait no she's horrible...ugh. Smile...cook...smile....eat...leave...
My mom has lost her ability to cook. She used to be great but is just terrible. Fortunately she is lazy and a lush so we'll cook while she bastes... I feel your pain!
One year at my alcoholic Aunt & Uncle's house my Aunt screwed up the food so badly (and has done this before) my Mom said "Hold on a minute". She put her coat on, went to the trunk of her car, and pulled out an entire, steaming hot Turkey with all the trimmings. Enough food to feed all twenty of us.
She had cooked the food earlier and set up trays to hold the food with lit Sterno cans under them in in her trunk after she got to my Aunts house. Mom saved Thanksgiving and we were all thankful that we didn't have to eat my Aunts cooking. I know why she did this but the fact that she did do it still amazes me to this day. Mom's a great cook, well except for her meatloaf, that really sucks.
Alcohol can make this almost bearable. I feel for you.
Lime Jello with Cottage Cheese and Pineapple Chunks.............GROSS!!!! But my Mother and Grandmother always made it on Thanksgiving.
Oh my gosh, I was having trouble coming up with a dreaded dish, but as i read through the blog, you nailed it! Absolutely the most disgusting dish in the world is the lime Jello w/cottage cheese/pineapple. Whoever dreamed that up in the beginning is a sicko!!!
I think that was a Redbook recipe from the early 70's
Oh I am with you there. Cottage cheese in jello = bad...cottage cheese in LIME jello= the worst! When I find something that resembles cottage cheese in my food, I know it's not suppose to be there..lol
Yep, most any of those colorful Jello amalgams add some nice visual something to the table as you sit down. But they're not worth eating. Waste of time.
LOL!!! That's as bad as "ambrosia!"
I like the greenbean caserole. But we make it with guyere cheese and cream of celery soup instead since the old mushroom/velveeta version was getting old.
You are trying to put a dress on a pig. Sorry.
Velveeta? There's no velveeta in green bean casserole!
Simple roasted sweet potatoes are great. When they are candied then topped with marshmallows, that is an atrocity.
Marshmallowsw are an atrocity?
HUH?
Toasted and melted on top....YUM!
My favorite part of Thanksgiving ;)
GROSS. You might as well pour butterscotch syrup all over your turkey while you're at it.
Bless us Oh Lord and these thy gifts which we are about to receive, except the Green bean casserole which we only have to see once per annum. I'll eat some out of tradition but it's an abomination that belongs at the bottom of the list somewhere. It's Thanksgiving's fruit cake.
The Thanksgiving dish that I dread the most is homemade cranberry sauce. I can have canned cranberry sauce and be just fine but after something I had happen to me as a child has given me a strong aversion to the homemade variety. Around 10 years ago (give or take a couple), I had gone to family party and my great aunt had made cranberry sauce. It was one of my favorite foods at the time so I ate a helping with my meal. Later that evening, I got so ill that I had to crash on my aunt's bedroom floor until my side of the family decided to leave. I knew it was the cranberry sauce and to this day, I am honest to God afraid of eating homemade cranberry sauce because of that.
I used to make it from scratch but found hardly anyone ever ate it...plop a gelatin tube out of a can and it goes. I no longer bother with home made cranberry sauce.
My grandmother used to make AWESOME homemade cranberry sauce... soooo much better than that stuff out of a can.
Who in their right mind does not like mushroom soup. I eat it by itself or with a sandwich a lot.Not much I don't like so I don't pass up much. This year I am on a diet so I will have to watch what I eat.
I don't like mushroom soup, and I am quit sane. I love mushrooms, but putting chunks of mushroom in pureed mushrooms to create a dish that looks like someone vomited up mushrooms is simply not appetizing.
I had the pleasure of experiencing 3 Thanksgivings in a row with a very Italian family. Everything was delicious full of traditional T.D. foods, home cooked from scratch and homemade Italian cookies for desert (which I had no problem chowing down on) . However, the one dish I could not eat or really want to see was the Lasagna. Now, I LOVE Lasagna, but for Thanksgiving, it was sensory overload and unfamiliar tastes and smells that really turned me off. I hardly ever ate any of the lasagna and felt bad about it, but Italian and Thanksgiving food, for me, just doesn't mix.
Okay, I feel I should say something positive now about our national holiday of gratitude - family traumas aside. I have never met a pecan pie I didn't like. Or a sweet potato pie.
Eat dessert first!
I'm with ya on the sweet potato pie! I made it last year for the family and they said no more pumpkin pie from now on
Love pecan pie except when my mom makes it because she uses margarine.
diarrhoea.
Mashed Potatoes. But since our family does thanksgiving family style, (doesn't everybodies?) when the potatoes come by I simply don't take any. No muss, no fuss.
I second that emotion...mashed potatoes are hands-down the grossest dish, year round – not just on Thanksgiving. The clearest example of a bland food item that, no matter how evil servers try to disguise it or accessorize it, it still looks like someone else chewed it and glopped it back on your plate. I cannot understand how anyone can choke it down. Also, for all of those people who insist..."Well, you haven't experienced MY mashed potatoes...they are simply spectacular!"...Nice *$^#'ing try....
Spot on about mushroom soup and green bean casserole. Disgusting stuff! I have a family member who always makes scalloped potatoes from a box, and even the smell of that makes me heave. But really all of the Thanksgiving "feast" turns me off. As a vegetarian, the tradition of centering the meal around a deformed, oversized, cruelly raised and messily slaughtered bird is positively primitive. Even to enter a home where a turkey was roasted for hours, and being hit with that smell of fat, is revolting.
Blasphemy! It's the one dish I look forward to most on Thanksgiving, if it's done right of course. Everything is about preparation and presentation. If you use fresh ingredients and make it from scratch, it's the most delicious thing you've ever had!
where do you buy fresh canned mushroom soup and fresh canned fried onions?
Mushroom soup? Mushroom and cream and some chicken stock. Fresh fried onions, yeah try onions dregged in seasoned flour and fried for 30 seconds!
vegetarians are exhausting. mostly weak, feebleminded, sickly looking people, not to mention pretentious and elitist and annoying and boorish. turkey smell makes you heave? the potatoes and green beans arent good enough either....geez i bet you have a gluten "allergy" too.
Well said.
So making incorrect assumptions about strangers and slamming the character of an anonymous poster in the Internet qualifies as "well said" in your wee mind.
Astounding.
Man it's getting fresh up in hur.
May you live an interesting life.
Watch the size of the brush you paint vegetarians with, ctr.
On the other hand, I am certain you are the picture of health and virility
chad is a punk
So you are a fat and unhealthy person who is jealous of people whom you have never met. And you try to make yourself feel superior because you know deep down inside you are inferior and lame and weak-minded. We who eat vegetarian often are posessed of Ph.D.'s in the sciences, we have good jobs, we are strong athletes and are well liked. Unlike those who feel they have to run down anyone who doesn't fall into one little self-restricting category (such as yourself)
Did you know that an alfalfa sprout screams when it's picked. You heartless monster...
You're obviously a real joy at Thanksgiving.
Odds are that she's pretty joyless on most other days too.
Nothing wrong w/Fiona. I can totallly understand how a vegetarian would heave at the smell of a cooked turkey - just as I want to heave when I see lime Jello w/cottage cheese and pineapple. This world is big enough for all kinds of tastes, and although I am a carnivore, I love a good vegetarian meal too. Vegetarian rock!!!
Cheers! I hope your Thanksgiving is brimming with delicious pies and joy.
Agreed! Wonderful post sneakipete. I actually cooked a tofu turkey one year and it was wonderful.
So why would go into anyone home around Thanksgiving day knowing that the smell of cooked turkey make you so violently ill ? not a very smart move unless you do it just to complain or to puff yourself out as a vegetarian trying to push your views on the world stay at home and graze
Uh...there are these people called "family" that you are supposed to visit on Big Dead Bird Day?
Generally, though, I make excuses and avoid the whole thing.
And why is GEEWORKER so insecure that he (clearly a 'he') can't let people eat or not eat what they want – just like he himself does – without making puerile and scathing and patently unfounded assumptions about the person's behavoir, motivations or agenda? Sounds like he knows he is wrong.
I'm not a vegetarian and I can't stand turkey either. My Dad always insisted that we were supposed to have one. Since him and my Mom both died back in 2000, I haven't had one since.
It's not the food but the company I dread the most...........
That's what Chad's and ctr's families say.
Well played Fiona.
I just don't eat stuff I don't like and hopefully it gets tossed out in the trash.
I hate the gooey, marshmallow covered, sickly sweet, sweet potato glop that one co-worker insists on bringing every year to our work Thanksgiving party. It is sugar coated, sugar filled sweet potato crap.
Just bake a sweet potato and put some butter on it. Delicious.
Cant stand sweet potato with marshmallows. Its a bit of Americana that is propagated by the American Dental Association so that dentist can stuff their stockings.
My ex-wife insisted on making her version of stuffing that was a rubbery mess. Year after year it would sit on the table, untouched and ignored. And yes, I tried to persuade her to make another side-dish to no avail. To make matters worse, she would drag it home with us to "eat later". By the middle of the week, it would mysteriously disappear. Heh! Heh!
Gotta love the 'leftovers gnomes' who eat that stuff...
o.k., how about my Kentucky grammy's cornbread NO SUGAR in the cornbread, sage, mushrooms, (sausage, my addition),celery, onions, etc. turkeystock, butter and so on. With gravy and mashed potatoes and turkey of course. No wonder my cholesterol is high. It is so worth it...and I'm almost 80! Happy Thanksgiving to all of you...
I with you Ellen. I lived in SC for 20 years and cornbread stuffing was a must. They can take all that sweet cornbread and throw it out the window. Ill take good old buttermilk cornbread anytime :)
Amen. Cornbread dressing rules. Even a cold slice of it out of the frig is pretty darn good eatin.
There isn't a food to dread because I can choose not to eat it. I dread making the gravy because it never comes out right.
my gravy always came out like jello... it was so bad my nephew made a song about it and called it... grav-ello... "it's not gravy... it's not jello... it's grav-ello!!!"
LOL! I just snorted when I read that.... the kids just looked at me funny – nothing unusual there. Now I am going to be singing that when MIL brings hers over on Thursday. I have a jar of heinz gravy in the pantry for me.... :P
Follow the instructions for making a thin bechemel sauce and you should do fine.
if it comes out too thick you are using too much flour. Also try using two starch types, flour and some potato starch, will keep it from going gooey!
Anything with Cranberries....! Horrid, simply horrid.
Cranberries are tart little bites of hell. I hate them. Jellied or juiced, still nasty.
My favorite is giblet gravy, with plenty of gibletey-chunks, but I'm the only one in the family that likes it now that Daddy is dead & gone, so now Mama won't make it for me. Thanksgiving just isn't the same (for two reasons).
Are you kidding me? Green bean casserole is one of my favorite parts!!! I love it! I however am not a huge fan of (I know this is bad) stuffing... it is disgusting to me... Turkey and gravy is fine without throwing in a mishmash of breadcrumbs, celery and spices that have been cooking inside it's disembowled body cavity for the past few hours LOL
I heard "Family Guy" call it turkey butt-h0le bread. I like like it, though.
i like corn
With as many dishes as there are on the table at Thanksgiving, I can't imagine why I'd dread any of them. I just don't serve myself a scoop of anything that doesn't appeal.
I guess, if I were cooking the meal and was somehow pressured into there being, say, a marshmallow-topped sweet potato casserole, I might "dread" having to be the one who makes it. I'd have to be living an entirely different life to imagine that happening, but there you go.
Green bean casserole is the bomb!! Gotta make it with fresh snapped green beans, though
I loved green bean casserole at home, then had some at school. It was worse than eating your own vomit. Its hard to shake that one bad memory and still enjoy, even though I know it can be good.
I hated my grandmother's turkey. She got up early to put it in and it would end up so dry that it would soak up gravy like a sponge. You could put copious amounts of gravy on it, reach over to get another dish, look back at your plate & find your gravy had disappeared.
Great image! That made me laugh. The worst Thanksgiving meal I ever had was one with my husband's family many years ago, when I still ate meat. My evil and crazy MIL overcooked the turkey by an hour or more because I told her it was done and she had to "prove" me wrong. She threw odd things into the stuffing because she claimed only people who can't cook follow recipes (I follow recipes). Everything was overcooked, under spiced, too sweet or painfully salty. On top of it all, fat MIL eats with her mouth open. The entire experience was horrifying.
I'm not fond of turkey, to be honest. But getting nit-picky about the types of foods served at an enormous meal while billions of people are starving? That seems kinda...wrong.
Good point. We should sit around an empty fasting table and resent ourselves for having something to be thankful for. Then maybe take turns crying at the thought of it and promise never to be happy til world hunger is no more.
Or just quit bitching.
Cranston for the win to actually ever write "LOL" and mean it ( although it was more of a chuckle )
sorry, that should be "for making me write LOL and meaning it"
Waldorf salad or variation. The gelatinous appearance of mayonnaise-smeared apples or grapes is unappetizing after an hour of dining.
I hate Waldorf Salad, too – but it's because of the walnuts. That and the fact that I was forced to eat it as a child, and made to sit at the table for HOURS until I did, and my mom made it many times a year, not just for Thanksgiving. I'd rather just eat an apple, eat some celery, eat a handful or raisins and skip the rest of it.
the dish pictured is hard to pull off successfully for many people. I myself tried making it and it was yucky. But my mom somehow was able to pull it off with flying colors, we all had seconds. The pot luck we had last Sat. did include a green beann/deep firied onion dish and it was ...yucky! hint: maybe use fresh green beans. I think that's the ticket. frozen g. beans are the death knell of it for sure. there's always stuffing.
I bought 4 bags of treats for my cats today and Publix dressing, gravy, and rolls. Then got a boars head turkey breast to heat up. Never tried one but hopefully it'll be ok. : ). We hope all of you have the happiest and Funnest holiday weekend ever. : )
Gosh. I like everything at Thanksgiving. But not so much pickled peaches. Or relatives saying mean things. : ). My favorite is the dressing and gravy and rolls. And mashes taters. I sure miss my grandma. Now she could cook : )
It's just SO horrible that all of you have so many dishes that you detest. I spent last Thanksgiving cooking for people who hadn't had anything to eat in at least a day. They would have given their.........anything to have what we complain about. COOK FOR YOURSELVES!!!!! STOP YOUR COMPLAINING. If you don't like what your mother-in-law or grandmother or mother or father etc etc makes, then make Thanksgiving dinner yourself and make what you like.................DUH!!! OH, wait, you don't know how to cook.....awwww, poor individual. LEARN..........get your lives together folks. It's called THANKSGIVING day, not COMPLAINING day.
Amen.
The question was – Is there a Thanksgiving dish you just dread? Quit preaching. I donated my Christmas bonus to the Red Cross to help people affected by Sandy.
If invited to Jerry's house, I think I'll pass. ha ha.
Oh, I'm sorry. I guess I should really just be thankful when some idiot puts OYSTERS in stuffing. I mean, they are cooking, right, and nothing says THANKSGIVING more than snot-like shellfish stuffed inside poultry.
Well, be ready for me to throw up all over your nice spread. It will be my gift. Be thankful for it.
LOL..
LOL I'd do that just to watch you gag and toss your cookies. Don't get your shoes dirty!
For decades creamed onions were assigned to someone in our family. Every year a few brave souls played with them on their plates. No one ate any. They are finally off the list. Now we just have to drop the marshmallow/yam/brown sugar goo that no one eats. Both are a waste – literally. Every bit ends in the trash after a short stay on a plate or two. Why make dishes no one eats. I love onions and sweet potatoes or yams – cooking them to mush or adding gobs of sugar to a vegetable dish is the "sin".
Oh, please...put a cork in it. This is just a bit of fun. We all beat ourselves with knotted ropes, wear hair shirts, chant prayers of remorse, and crawl on our bloody hands and knees to the homeless shelters every Thanksgiving, Christmas and Hanukkah, and donate all of our income to charity. Of course, you must live on bread and water, Jerry. How could you enjoy anything more knowing others don't have as much?
Thank you! I was thinking the same thing.
Being told he would have to work the double shift at Target this Black Friday, Jerry felt he had one opportunity to feel superior to everyone else on Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, his attempt failed miserably
Complaining day is coming... Happy Festivus!
You guys are crazy. Green bean casserole is my favorite part of Thanksgiving. Pour some turkey gravy over it and it's even better. Not sure how they managed to make the picture above look so disgusting though. I'd say the actual turkey is my least favorite. The tradition should be changed to chicken or duck.
Duck probably would have been the main meat at the harvest festivals, anyway...that or venison. I roast a chicken during the years when I can't be with family. Turkey is just...blech.
Duck is gross. If you are having bad turkey, then you aren't cooking it properly. Sorry, to be so blunt, but you guys are being a tad bit ridiculous.
Yes, because EVERYONE is required to have the same taste buds and must like everything that you do. You're being just slightly (read: very) hypocritical, saying how duck is gross but call someone else out when they say turkey is not to their liking.
Wrong! Duck is from heaven.
We're crazy for not liking your namesake? Sux to be you.
Turkey. Never liked it. I used to coat it in ketchup as a child to choke it down. Nowadays, I just make a meal without it. Extra points for not having an animal carcass at the center of the table!
The Question: "Is there a dish you just dread?" Yes, all the dirty ones in the sink afterwards.
DING, DING, DING...we have our winner!
I am thankful to have food to eat this year – nothing to dread for me.
Amen. We are very blessed. I'm thankful to still have a job and a good earm home and a car that runs. I'm also thankful and grateful for the CNN Blogs and my cats and GOD to keep me from being alone. We are blessed and life is good.
Nice post. I feel thie same as you. I feel more "in the zone" this year than I ever have.
Agreed.
If someone is gracious enough to do all that grocery shopping, cleaning & cooking, who am I to complain?:
Thank you anonymous, I'm with you on that.
I'm right there, with you. Happy Thanksgiving!
I make the meal, so I don't prepare anything I don't like! Booya!
Exactly!
Use mixed veggies instead of green beans. Makes it a lot more tolerable.
...and does anyone else think that photo (at the start of the article) is just disgusting? looks like something I was trying to avoid 50 years ago in college on the morning after.
I thought it was chitterlings at first. Oh Yum!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Right there with you Mr.Steve. Snotty green beans, whipped cream in or on anything, cranberry relish (love the jelly tho) and peecan pie are my prime avoidances. Everything else is fair game.
Just skip it and order a pizza! It goes better with Football anyway!
Shredded Turkey pizza is something I plan to trademark.
Anything sweet and sticky on my sweet potatoes, savory please.
My ex-mother in law's turkey. Only she could dry-out a butterball turkey in a basting bag. her mashed potatoes were close kin to library paste.
i don't even know what to say other than "run away" or "I'm so sorry"
sweet potatoes with marshmallows. Yuk
Green Bean Casserole, Onion Stuffing, Sweet Potatoes, Any Jello Salad, Cranberry relish out of a can – UCK
Green bean casserole gets a bad rap! It can be delightful as long as it doesn't come from a can/freezer. Try out this recipe and you will never go back. http://kitchen-parade-veggieventure.blogspot.com/2006/11/worlds-best-green-bean-casserole.html
link isn't working for me. but the casserole thing (in my opinion) sucks anyway. try real green beens, fresh, panfried a few minutes in butter with a sprinkle of s&p, add some caramilized onions and shrooms.
It's thanksgiving, spend a few minutes with fresh stuff. you will be amazed!!!
Hey Carrie, Thanks for posting that recipe. It looks delicious!
Did anyone find out who voted for Obama?
yeah; over half the voters. now go home, you're on the wrong forum.
Over 50%+ of Americans? Go outside sometimes and you won't have any trouble finding one. Also, Obama is not a Thanksgiving dish (at least not in MY family).
Americans did. I heard that the Nazi's didn't.
*chuckle*
Any "salad" that involves Jell-o. That sort of thing should be illegal.
Surprisingly, I don't hate on the green bean casserole, though now I will think of it differently. Gaak.
And I'm trying to grow out of it, but I really hate running into giblets when I'm eating stuffing.
absolutely agree with the jello thing. I like jello IF it is jello. the only thing that is allowed to be added is cool-whip/whipped cream.
Green bean casserole
Anything with sweet potatoes
with you there...