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Happy Thanksgiving!

by Deborah Miller

The holidays seem to turn the nostalgia dial up to eleven for many of us, especially when it comes to food.  We find comfort in the familiarity of the menu and we want them prepared the exact same way we had them at our table.  I certainly wouldn’t put my mother’s green bean casserole up against anyone else’s because it was just green beans, cream of mushroom soup topped with fried onions, but it somehow tasted better when she made it.

That was never more evident to me than the year a former boyfriend painstakingly removed all the fried onions from the top of my casserole and placed them back one by one in the exact same pattern his mother had used. Or the year one of my best friends insisted on big marshmallows instead of tiny ones on top of the sweet potatoes. I got it. As progressive as we are, there are some things you just don’t mess with.

My family always watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade while making final preparations. We ate mid-day with everyone going around the table speaking out what we were grateful for, and we were done in time to watch football.  The non-football watchers would pull out an old movie, usually a musical, sing along, cry a little, and laugh a lot. Almost everybody took a nap.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. The expectations are relatively low in comparison to Christmas. It’s mostly about the food, the wine, the pie, and being together.

The last few weeks, I found myself fascinated by a handful of  Thanksgiving posts on Facebook this year that are worth sharing. We hope you enjoy them as much as we did.

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For Thanksgiving: 8 Vintage Recipes From Duke University’s Cookbook Archives
Look what librarians and staff at the Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University discovered while browsing vintage recipes from their extensive cookbook collection.

Credit Playing Futures: Applied Nomadology / Flickr/Creative Commons
Credit Playing Futures: Applied Nomadology / Flickr/Creative Commons

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An interesting representation of cultural foodways. What does your state say about you, your food traditions, and your recipe googling activities?
Just in case you’re one of those obsessive googlers (I confess, I am), check out ths map of the Thanksgiving recipes googled in every state. North Carolina’s is Pig Pickin’ Cake with not a piece of pork anywhere close by.

pig-pickin-cake-600

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Americans love the Thanksgiving myth. But food folklore masks a painful reality
Food writer and culinary historian Michael W. Twitty unpacks some of the true diversity on the Thanksgiving table and some of its more painful history as well.

Family Saying Grace at Thanksgiving Dinner
Is there anything as American as Thanksgiving? Well … probably. Photograph: Larry Williams/Corbis

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Whatever the dish, the timing of the dinner, or the traditions surrounding the day in your family, I think we’re all just wishing for a connection whether it’s creating new traditions for our  future or simply longing for the warm ones in our past.

Joy and I are thankful for you as a follower of NC Food and wish you the happiest of days in hopes that it is filled with warmth, family, friends and food!

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Filed Under: Central NC, Eastern NC, Food, New South, Southeastern NC, Uncategorized, Western NC Tagged With: cultural foodways, Deborah Miller, food folklore, Michael W. Twitty, Thanksgiving traditions

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