Thanksgiving Dinner: The Best and The Worst

If you celebrate Thanksgiving, you know how hard it is to pick the right foods. Everybody has different ideas of the perfect meal, and everybody has different ideas on what the best part of the Thanksgiving meal is. Personally, my family eats turkey, rolls, corn, mashed potatoes, stuffing, pumpkin pie, apple pie, and cherry pie every year. Every once in a while my mom throws in some asparagus and manicotti, though they are not a yearly thing. My dad and I have a silly argument every year about which of these foods is the best. In my humble opinion, this is the perfect list:

The Dinner

1. To start, the best food on the table on Thanksgiving day is the turkey. The turkey is the backbone of the meal, the food that brings the whole meal together. Not a single ham should be cooked on Thanksgiving, as the turkey is the go-to meat of the day.

2. Next, and probably the most important food, is the stuffing. My mother makes her stuffing the best way possible with cornbread, ripped up chunks of white bread, chopped up celery and onion, parsley, sage, butter, eggs, and chicken stock.  Dressing, which does not go into the turkey, is the better kind of stuffing as it gets slightly crunchy on the top and incredibly soft in the middle. 

3. The mashed potatoes, made perfectly with some lumps, almost tie with the stuffing. However, the stuffing will always take the cake. Mashed potatoes hold a special place in my heart and forever complete a Thanksgiving meal. My mother makes two types of mashed potatoes. She makes her own potatoes, with sour cream and cream cheese and all kinds of dairy products in it, and she makes my dad and me our own potatoes, which have no extra fancy dairy products. 

4. The rolls and the corn are on the same level. The rolls are perfect to make tiny sandwiches with turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes, but the corn is spectacular. The exact seasoning on the corn is a secret, but they blend together so perfectly on the corn that it takes the corn above and beyond. 

5. The horrible food that takes the last place prize in the Thanksgiving meal category is cranberry. There is nothing to it. It has a strange texture, an odd taste, and, to put it plainly, it looks weird. 

Dessert

The desserts are, in my opinion, more controversial than the dinner. The go-to, never-fail desserts are pumpkin pie, apple pie, and cherry pie. There’s no need to dabble in any fancy, over-the-top, at-home baking when you can go pick up three amazing pies at Bakers Square. 

1. The pumpkin pie, very clearly, wins the race for the best Thanksgiving dessert. Pumpkin pie is the classic fall pie. It rounds out the fall and Thanksgiving experience, ending the meal with a perfect touch of pumpkin and whipped cream. 

2. Apple pie, however, seems to be over-appreciated. Apple pie is one of the most popular pies, and while I do appreciate a good slice of apple pie, it almost seems out of place after a hearty meal such as a Thanksgiving meal. 

3. Cherry pie, my absolute least favorite Thanksgiving pie, takes last place in the Thanksgiving dessert category. I have never liked cherry pie, and it, just like the apple pie, seems out of place at a fall holiday. 

Overall, I hope you agree with my definitive ranking of Thanksgiving foods!