What Holiday Food Taditions Do You NOT Like?

[Lorelei_Evil]

I'll try and remember to post my fruitcake recipe.  It's really good.

[BellyBionic]

I was raised in a large LDS family in the heart of the Jello Belt.  I will not eat Jello of any kind except the very specific exception of alcohol-laden jello shots.  Jello with anything solid in it makes me sick just looking at it.

I was mostly responsible for the Thanksgiving meal in my family starting when I was about 14.  One year, I decided to make a green bean casserole from scratch since I also hate anything made with canned Cream of Something soup.  Fresh, steamed green beans with a scratch mushroom white sauce and freshly fried onions with panko for extra crunch.  I loved it, but the rest of the family loudly complained that I'd "ruined" the casserole.

I also love sweet potatoes, but not if they come from a can and not covered in marshmallows.  I make Kentucky Bourbon Sweet Potatoes every year instead.  Fresh sweet potatoes roasted in butter, brown sugar, pecans, and bourbon.  It's heaven.  Whenever my mom comes to our house for the holiday, I have to make another dish of candied yams with marshmallows for her, because she won't touch my recipe even though she no longer has any moral objection to alcohol and there's no alcohol left after the long bake anyway.

Cranberries are my kryptonite.  Jellied, whole berry, homemade, raw straight out of the bag, I don't care, I'll eat them all in large quantities.  If canned sauce is what's available I'll easily eat half a can by myself with a single meal.  By January when all the holiday cooking is done, I'll have at least two dozen bags of cranberries in the freezer to get me through to next year when they're cheap and easy to find again.

[siamesecat2965]

Not a huge fan of turkey; I'll eat it if I go somewhere for TDay, and we used to get a fresh turkey breast when we cooked Thanksgiving.  last year mom and I went out for TDay, she had duck and I had steak.  It was fabulous!

Sweet potatoes of any kind; I hate the taste so no matter how they're prepared they're gross.  Green bean casserole. BLECH is all I can say. 

My mom loves mince pie, but won't make it just for herself.  But she and my dad were the only ones who ate it - the smell is enough to send me running in the other direction.

Canned cranberry sauce. My mom made some homemade cranberry compote last year for Christmas and it was fabulous!  I think I still have some in the freezer

I'm staying home alone for Thanksgiving this year, and am trying to figure out what to make. I'm leaning towards Beef stroganoff with some sort of veggie.

[Lynda_34]

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

I am going to read the entire thread, but I have to tell you, and it became a family joke.
I would push the cranberry sauce out of the can at Thanksgiving and at the end of the meal would put it in a ziplock bag and serve it again at the Christmas family meal.  It did take a couple of years before the kids caught on but that is now a family tradition.

[DavidH]

I'm with BellyBionic, cranberries are great, even the canned jelly kind.  Another idea is cranberry jello made with half water and half cranberry juice to up the cranberry taste.

I think savory jello "salads" comes from the days of aspic going around meat.  I do know that in the 50s and 60s they had some horrible sounding jello flavors like seasoned tomato, celery, Italian salad, and mixed vegetable just for making those horrible jello salads with.  Fortunately I missed those.

[Luci45]

I provided the venue for the extended family Thanksgiving dinner Sunday. I did not put out cranberry sauce and no one brought it. Nothing was said, so I think we are done with that one!

[Redwing]

Canned green beans should never ever be used for the infamous green bean casserole.   For those of you who do like green bean casserole, I encourage you to try making it from scratch.  Alton Brown has a good recipe.  Once you've gone fresh, you'll never go back to Campbell's.

For those you who don't like it, fresh may change your mind!

[kethria]

Canned green beans should never ever be used for the infamous green bean casserole.   For those of you who do like green bean casserole, I encourage you to try making it from scratch.  Alton Brown has a good recipe.  Once you've gone fresh, you'll never go back to Campbell's.

For those you who don't like it, fresh may change your mind!

POD. I use frozen green beans and make the "soup" from mushrooms and heavy cream. I think the only thing that stays the same is the crunchy fried onions on top and only because I can't make them myself (...yet).

Although we love the both fresh and jellied cranberries. The tube cranberries sliced thick on a sandwich of leftover turkey and dressing? Heaven! My fresh cranberry relish has orange zest and triple-sec. Mmmmmm.

[BellyBionic]

Canned green beans should never ever be used for the infamous green bean casserole.   For those of you who do like green bean casserole, I encourage you to try making it from scratch.  Alton Brown has a good recipe.  Once you've gone fresh, you'll never go back to Campbell's.

For those you who don't like it, fresh may change your mind!

I'm not a fan of green bean casserole, because it was never part of my family's tradition.  I didn't even taste it until I was old enough to be spending Thanksgiving with the family of someone I was dating.  My wife loves it, though, and requests it every year.  The first year we were together, one of our other guests offered to bring the GBC, so I was off the hook.  I also really didn't care for it.  The next year, I decided to make it all fresh with Alton's recipe.  I thought it was pretty good, but no one else ate more than a couple of bites.  This year, my wife sat me down and very gently explained that she loves my cooking, I am the best cook in the world, no one else cooks like I do, I should have my own show on the Food Network, but could I *please* make the GBC with canned beans and cream of mushroom soup and canned fried onions like it's meant to be?  So I'm giving in.  I will actually be buying canned cream of sodium soup when I go shopping tomorrow, which I would normally never do.  I won't be eating it, but everyone else at the table will.

[Venus193]

Ah, yes; cream of washroom soup.  I haven't had a can of that in my house.  Ever.  The only thing I ever use mushrooms for is boeuf bourgignon.

I had never heard of GBC until I came to this forum. 

[General Jinjur]

Canned green beans should never ever be used for the infamous green bean casserole.   For those of you who do like green bean casserole, I encourage you to try making it from scratch.  Alton Brown has a good recipe.  Once you've gone fresh, you'll never go back to Campbell's.

For those you who don't like it, fresh may change your mind!

Only if I can substitute something for the green beans.

[blue2000]

Ah, yes; cream of washroom soup.  I haven't had a can of that in my house.  Ever.  The only thing I ever use mushrooms for is boeuf bourgignon.

I had never heard of GBC until I came to this forum. 

LOLOL!!! Very nice description!

I don't mind GBC myself, but I can't eat it anymore. What I don't like is when people take lovely fresh veggies and boil them to a greyish sludge. My mother should be arrested for crimes against broccoli.

[Dazi]

^^^crimes against broccoli...I love it...add my mother to the grey sludge group and add green beans to the vegetables that shouldn't be grey.



I don't really care for sweet potatoes or glazed carrots.  I refuse to make candied yams...yuckity, yuck, yuck.

[kitty-cat]

Mom and I hate mushrooms, so we subbed cream of celery for it in green bean casserole.


Worth a shot if ya don't like mushrooms.

[Glaceon]

I love cream of mushroom soup from the can.  Guess I'm just extra gross.