We all have our favorites, but some people keep making Thanksgiving foods that some of us are not all that crazy about. Care to share your non-favorites?
We have a friend who insists on bringing the ol’ green bean casserole made with canned green beans,canned cream of mushroom soup and french fried onion rings, also canned. To me, all that canned stuff is sort of gross. Now, made with fresh beans, I might like it a whole lot more but as it is I generally pass on it.
I know this is probably heresy, but I don’t really care at all for pumpkin pie. I like pumpkin bread, pumpkin squares, and roasted pumpkin seeds, but pumpkin pie just doesn’t do it for me. Fortunately we always have at least one other dessert.
If you take the trouble to make pumpkin pie from real pumpkins rather than canned, it’s a whole other thing, and very tasty
This time of year the grocery stores also stock pumpkin ice cream. My wife buys it, but it’s not one of my favorites. After listening to Praire Home Companion for years, I see that Garrison Keillor always gets a laugh when he describes what the women bring to the church dinners. He always mentions the hot dish made with cream of mushroom soup, definately not very appealing to me, too salty, for one thing.
For me it’s the mashed squash. It just reminds me of the worst variety of baby food.
Pumpkin pie I will gladly consume, even the canned variety.
I don’t like the taste, either. Something about the texture. Even if it’s not mashed, it too soft and sweet for me.
football! 
Excepting Green Bay I assume.
Sweet potatoes with marshmallows and/or brown sugar. Sweet potatoes DON’T NEED MARSHMALLOWS OR BROWN SUGAR. It’s like spraying cheap perfume on a rose. Butter. Just butter. 
Get it? Got it? Good. 
Some of us don’t even need no butter! 
Yes, I admit I’m a decadent fop when it comes to butter on my sweet potatoes. But even I know that you have to draw the line somewhere. Marshmallows. Ack. Pfftht. Glurg.
Pumpkin anything. Cucumbers are the only edible gourd.
So, no watermelon or honeydew for s1m0n?
I’ll side with Paul on the canned green bean casserole and add deviled eggs and all manner of turkey weirdness to the list . . . injected turkey, brined turkey, deep-fried turkey, you name it. There is something to be said for a roasted, all-natural turkey. Smoked turkey is good, but only on sandwiches.
Three other apparently traditional family favorites I’ve encountered and rejected were a mashed potato salad composed of potatoes held together with mayonnaise-like salad dressing, molded into a gargantuan lump using a dishpan and solidly covered with paprika; a crockpot of miniature sausages in ketchup and grape jelly; and a lasagna-esque casserole of baked beans layered with mostly raw bacon.
I could do without those white rolls sold in big bags, too.
Oh, I nearly forgot . . . canned jellied cranberry sauce. Urgh!
The key is sausage. The past several years, I’ve made this sort-of casserole thing that has squash, diced apples, sausage (cooked till crispy, then drained of at least some of the fat), all mixed together, then topped with brown sugar and butter. Baked till the top is crisped.
I could eat a watermelon, but I’ve never found much of a compelling reason to do so. Watermelon ranks somewhere between ‘ho’ and ‘hum’. All the rest are nasty.
Ah, the tragedy of being the only lamb born into a family of goats. Goats will eat anything, and don’t seem to mind proving it in front of you.
Mercifully, my family has good taste, so I do not have to eat anything with marshmallows on it, or that is shaped like the inside of its mold, say. We also each have admittedly idiosyncratic personal tastes, so not taking a helping of something is not seen as an insult to the household. Now part of the tradition is latitude to experiment, so it is expected that some things will be different enough to at least add interest to the meal. I was told my sour cream cheesecake is not improved by replacing a package of cream cheese with an equal amount of blue cheese, though. Many of my friends and I at the Unitarian Universalist church potlucks like my little personal innovation. It adds an interesting tang to the cheesecake.
Oh my. Well, all the more for me, then. 
Now THAT sounds good. 
Um…wait. What kind of sausage?