Thanksgiving food has a special place in my heart. For me, it symbolizes coming together as a family. As a kid I was a VERY picky eater which led to not liking a lot of the traditional thanksgiving foods. Putting them against each other doesn’t seem fair, so I’m going to divide them into 3 groups: Just simply bad, controversial, and the food that most of your plate is composed of.

Starting off with the bad: From my past of being a very picky eater you’d think that I would dislike more thanksgiving food. There are only 2 main dishes that I cannot stand. stuffing and cranberry sauce. Stuffing has a variety of flavors going for it, but they don’t blend well together with the bread, meat, and vegetables. It would be better if it was more balanced with less stuff going on. As for cranberry sauce, it’s the texture. It tastes like Jello and you’re supposed to put it on meat? That’s gotta be a no from me. 

In the controversial category, I’m putting in turkey and green beans. I think that both of these foods can either be really good or really bad. If a turkey is cooked properly and isn’t super dry it can be a great food with really nice flavor and texture. Green beans are very hit or miss. It takes a gigantic amount of spices and seasonings to make them worth the space in one’s stomach. 

Moving on to the best; mashed potatoes, gravy, dinner rolls, and pumpkin pie. Honoring my Idahoan self I have to give mashed potatoes their place to shine. They are immaculate. The flavor combined with the texture creates this pillow of satisfaction in your mouth. Gravy is a staple for Thanksgiving and elevates any dish with its flavor; nothing can compare. Dinner rolls are my weakness, especially Hawaiian rolls (not sponsored). Pumpkin pie. Oh. My. God. My family uses fresh pumpkins to make it and it is unreal. It’s smooth and packed with cinnamon and ginger and cardamom. 

Although these are traditional Thanksgiving foods, people opt out of certain portions of this meal and replace it with personal preferences to cater to their own family’s and friends’ tastes. Some of these substitutions include ham for turkey, or creating a tofu dish to make a vegetarian/vegan option.