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What's Your Favorite Thanksgiving Food?

Posted by Ed Levine, November 1, 2007 at 8:30 AM

It's November 1, so now I can start obsessing in earnest about Thanksgiving without everyone thinking I'm a complete nut job. To me Thanksgiving is all about the stuffing and the pie. But maybe not everyone feels the way I do, so I've decided to let Serious Eaters weigh in on this extremely important topic.

Perhaps some of you love turkey or its crisp skin. Others may live for the moment they bite into the sweet potatoes (with or without marshmallows) or the mashed potatoes enriched with loads of butter and heavy cream. Maybe, just maybe, to some folks, Thanksgiving is all about the green beans or the brussels sprouts or some other green or other-colored vegetable.

For my wife turkey day is all about the broccoli puree with creme fraiche she makes from the Silver Palate (recipe to be posted in the days to come).

Let me make the case for both stuffing and pie before you cast your vote.

Stuffing potentially has everything a person could want in a food. The version I make every year is a Silver Palate recipe for corn bread, sausage, apple, and pecan stuffing that I simplify by using Pepperidge Farm cubed corn bread stuffing as a base. (Don't kill me, Alice, I'm doing the best I can.) So in one easy-to-make dish, I get crunchy pecans and bread, lots of buttery corn bread bits, my necessary daily fix of sausage, and the apple a day I need to keep the doctor away. Could any dish supply any more pleasure than this?

Maybe pie. I must admit I buy the pies. I've tried making them, I've even gotten a pie lesson from Anne Dimock, who literally wrote the book on pie, Humble Pie. But my pies have never turned out half as good as the pies I buy.

Now I don't buy just any pie. I have tasted hundreds of pies over the years, so I think I know where every great pie is in New York (I'll post my New York pie picks in the coming days). I've even become something of a mail-order pie expert (those picks will also be posted soon). In fact, I have ordered pies from California, Wisconsin, and Michigan in my efforts to serve the finest pies in the land at my Thanksgiving table. A great pie has a flaky crust made with a combination of lard and butter, a nongoopy filling that's not too sweet, is firm enough to force the pie eater to apply just the slightest pressure with a fork, and has the perfect filling-to-crust ratio.

I don't know if I've made my case for stuffing or pie, but in any case it's now time to vote.

What's your favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal?

A. Pie
B. Potatoes
C. Stuffing
D. Turkey
E. Vegetables
F. Other (fill in your choice here)

Photograph from xybermatthew on Flickr

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Tags: holidays, pie, stuffing, Thanksgiving