What Holiday Food Taditions Do You NOT Like?

[Giggity]

Can-shaped cranberry sauce. Blech. I truly don't recall anyone ever eating any of it. Why is it there?

[Mikayla]

Green bean casserole.

Heh...my BIL, who normally hosts things, finally forbid it to cross the threshold.   He was kidding.  Sort of.

I hate turkey, and dressing is something I've never even tasted.  I love all the traditional accompaniments, and my family does do extensive side dishes.  Just don't make me try the turkey and dressing.

[mechtilde]

Bread sauce.

[glacio]

Growing up my brother and I didn't have to finish everything that we were given for the holiday meal, however we weren't allowed to have desert unless we did. Green bean casserole was always on the menu and always on the plate. I loved it but my brother couldn't stand the stuff, but of course he wanted to have to desert so his plate was always cleared. When he was about 6 he again cleared his plate on Thanksgiving. Later that week my mom discovered when doing laundry that instead of eating it, he had put the green bean casserole (mushroom soup and all) into his pockets. Oh she was mad. He got in so much trouble, but my mom decided that if he hated it enough to sit through a few hours of that squishy-ness in his pocket then he really did hate it. Ever since he has salad for holidays.

[Moray]

Can-shaped cranberry sauce. Blech. I truly don't recall anyone ever eating any of it. Why is it there?

Because certain people (*cough* my family *cough*) think the real stuff is too "chunky" and "gross" and will only eat the weird, cylindrical kind. So, because I love them, and because it's what they always have, I make sure it's on the table.

I'm an enabler.

[PrincessInPink]

I'm not a fan of stuffing. I eat a small helping of it on Thanksgiving for the sake of tradition, but I don't really enjoy it that much.

I don't like most pies, but only because I don't like pie crust. But I will eat a piece of pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving- sometimes just the filling. And I do like anything with an Oreo or graham cracker crust.

[HorseFreak]

I hate turkey. My dad tried to force me to eat it when I was a kid one Thanksgiving long ago and I promptly returned it to my plate. It was a great meal overall: my brother got grounded, my mom left the table crying and my dad kept yelling, "Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!" It's a running joke now and we always go out to eat for Thanksgiving now.

I do love me some canned cranberry sauce, though!

[SamiHami]

I  love my mother dearly. She is a sweet, kindhearted woman with many talents. Sadly, cooking is not one of those. She is a lifelong anorexic, so perhaps that's why.

Every year for Thanksgiving she makes dressing. She has not varied the recipe one bit in my almost 48 years of life. And every year, it winds up in the trash. She hasn't figured out yet that no one in the entire family likes it, and we are long past the point where we take just a little to be polite. The dressing in question is made with lots and lots of celery. LOTS of celery. Did I mention that I have always hated celery? Anyway, she mashes it up with some bread and broth and I don't know what else, and bakes it. It is, in a word, vile. Yet she still makes it.

My brother's wife came up with a dressing recipe quite a few years back and we all love it. No one wanted to make mom feel bad by eating SIL's but not hers, but that is pretty much how it has worked out. We usually let Mom give us some as "leftovers" and throw it out as soon as we get home.

Hey! I just realized something! Now that I'm gluten intolerant, I can decline the stuff without feeling guilty!  Woo Hoo!

[Sharnita]

Can-shaped cranberry sauce. Blech. I truly don't recall anyone ever eating any of it. Why is it there?

my family loves it.

[LTrew]

I love the canned cranberry jelly!  I will gladly serve it along with proper homemade cranberry sauce because they fulfil entirely different purposes....  Sometimes I even buy it off the internet because you can't get it in the UK.

I hate all traditional English Christmas desserts.  I don't like (most) dried fruit, and I don't like alcohol, so that is pretty much everything.  Christmas pudding? Full of dried fruit and alcohol.  Christmas cake? Mince pies? The same.  Trifle? Still soaked in alcohol and I find the texture of cake with jelly (jello) set in it to be revolting, and I don't care for the type without the jelly either.  Everything is also soaked in alcoholic dairy products like brandy butter or just straight up cream, clotted cream, pouring cream, double cream.  It is a lactose intolerant, teetotaller, dried fruit disliking persons nightmare...

I try to bring something I like along, and my family normally make a fruit salad or something as well.

Also, bread sauce! Does anyone actually like it?  What is the point?

[mechtilde]

Also, bread sauce! Does anyone actually like it?  What is the point?

My parents and my DH do. Never met anyone else who did though.

Mind you- we're an odd family. DS2 likes sprouts.

[Harriet Jones]

Can-shaped cranberry sauce. Blech. I truly don't recall anyone ever eating any of it. Why is it there?

I like it, too.

I don't like a lot of the other traditional Thanksgiving sides, like sweet potatoes, dressing/stuffing, and just about any other casserole-y kinds of sides.

[shadowfox79]

Turkey. We always have duck instead.

Sprouts. We've retired those in the last few years.

And Christmas cake. We get one every year and no-one ever eats it.

I would love to go to America and be adopted by a family so I could try your Christmas food. It all sounds delicious.

[NestHolder]

Brussels sprouts with the Christmas turkey!  Yeccchh.

Mince pies are okay, Christmas pudding is... okay, but really, after a major meal of turkey, roast potatoes, roast parsnips etc, I don't think a solid lump of compressed dried fruit is the best way to finish!  There are so many far tastier puddings (trans: desserts) in the world, I'm probably going with something else this year.  I think I did so last year, producing a cheesecake with mincemeat swirls that worked very well.  But my DH is very partial to Christmas pudding, so I'll buy a few and we will have them as occasional treats during the winter.

[crella]

I'm reminded of the time I took two Japanese guys to my mother's house for Thanksgiving. Now, in Japan, the natural state of the veggies is important, the veggies are given a lot of attention in traditional formal dinners.....they're carved and served in a bit of broth, or braised. The shape and texture is important. I don't know about everywhere in the US, but in the New England area, the squash is mashed, the potatoes are mashed, the turnips are mashed, the sweet potatoes are candied and kind of a blob in the dish...

prompting my serious-about-learning-all-about-American-culture guests to ask, "So, tell us, why do you have the tradition of eating baby food on Thanksgiving?"

Glad Mum doesn't speak Japanese...