What started as a simple festival celebrating the year’s bountiful harvest has turned into an archetypal American holiday, with grand dinners featuring savory and sweet dishes alike. Thanksgiving foods have changed over the years, but there are still some iconic favorites that have withstood time. Hover over each food below in this interactive image and find out more about their role in this day of feasting:
What are your favorite Thanksgiving dishes? Let us know in the comments below!
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I used to make fried rice with stir-fried vegetables on a fairly regular basis. Everyone liked to eat it, but no one liked to help clean up. Also, by the time I was done cooking, I was exhausted. After one too many complaints about the mess it made (from someone who will remain nameless) I vowed never to make stir fry again! Take that!
I stuck to my promise for several months, but I missed the flavors. So I tried to find a way to simplify the process.
Step one: I found a great recipe for baked fried rice. Yes, it involves less oil, and that’s nice and all, but even better, I don’t have to tend to it, and I still get that yummy chewy texture. So much less work! I don’t add the Sriracha that the recipe calls for at this stage since the kids wouldn’t touch it if I did. And I’d love to try the pineapple and cashews she uses—they look so yummy—but so far I’ve just stuck to whatever “usual suspect” veggies I have on hand. Broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, onions, that kind of thing.
Step two: I pared down my list of vegetables to cut out some of the chopping. I usually feel like I have to put in a little of everything, but really, I don’t.
Step three: I roast veggies instead of stir-frying. Nope, it’s not just the same, but the veggies are still delicious. I cooked everything at about the same temp as the rice until the rice was done, and then I think I turned up the heat a bit.
I let the kids choose the veggies they want before we mix them all together for us. If I have time, I like to make this peanut sauce and of course, the grown ups always get Sriracha.
Now I’d be lying if I said this version isn’t messy or time-consuming. It still requires a fair amount of prep and cleanup. But somehow being able to cook it unattended, all at the same time (rather than in batches) makes it less of a pain to make. Works for me, anyway.
Finished My Berlin Kitchen by Luisa Weiss. Sigh. I miss it now. Are you reading anything good? I need something to curl up with. The weather here has been horrible this week, and I’m sorry, friends in northern climes, because your weather must be ten times worse. It’s starting to feel like that Ray Bradbury story where the people live on a planet where the sun comes out only once every seven years (All Summer in a Day). We can make it to spring, right?
The school’s book character parade was this morning and as usual was pretty much the cutest thing all year. Hope I can show you a pic of our little Marco Polo soon. The costume is pretty sweet. Marie Antoinette also looked great, though her costume was just a fancy dress we found at the thrift store.
Have a great weekend! And now, back to novel writing….
Rice is not the first thing that comes to mind when you are drinking a nice, cold beer. And if you’re a beer connoisseur, even less so. For many years, it has been considered to be an affront to the institution of craft beer making to use rice. However, some beer makers are toying with the use of rice in beer again as homage to the practices that occurred before the Prohibition. This counterculture attitude reflects how beer brewers are looking to the past to evolve current drinkers’ palates. The following excerpt from the The Oxford Companion to Beer goes into detail on exactly how rice is used. Enjoy! — Nathalie
Anheuser-Busch is the largest single buyer of rice in the United States. Budweiser beer is brewed with rice making up a large portion of the grist.
[...]
It is commonly held, at least among craft brewers, that the use of rice in beer is to be abhorred. To quote Maureen Ogle, from an article in the LA Times, “Rice is considered by many brewers to be what the nasty, industrialized brewers use to water down their beer” and “craft brewers treat rice almost as if it were rat poison.” The article goes on to state that rice lowers the body, flavor and color of beers made with elevated rice adjunct levels, which seems rather to reinforce the notion.
In fact, German brewers arrived in America to find that it was difficult to make good beer using the high-protein, six-row barleys available in the United States at the time. Looking for ways to dilute the malt, they began to use rice and corn. The end result bears little resemblance to good German or Czech lagers but their customers enjoyed this form of beer and millions of people still do. Although rice may once have been a cheap alternative to barley malt, it no longer is. Sharply rising prices have resulted in much higher material costs for brewers employing rice in their mashes.
Interestingly, despite the assertions by many American craft brewers and beer enthusiasts that rice is anathema, some craft brewers are experimenting with production of “pre-Prohibition” lagers that mimic the beers made in the United States in the late 1800s. These are relatively highly hopped but are very light bodied, the result of the use of up to 20% rice in the mash. Other craft brewers are experimenting with the use of specialized rice types that actually add interesting flavors to the beers.
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Ahh yes! My ideal breakfast on a typical Saturday morning. But nowadays, this type of meal would only be served on special occasions (especially after a very heavy night of drinking) since it’s not exactly the healthiest of combos to start off with. (Yes in our household canned and processed meat deserves a special occasion) But gosh darnit, there’s nothing like waking up to the smell of rice, spam, and eggs (and hot sauce) in the morning!
What’s your ideal breakfast?
Eleven years ago I made my first visit to Cambodia and fell in love. I was in Phnom Penh, which in 1997 was a city of hope, and the mood of joyous optimism that pervaded its streets was irresistible. The man who was my motorcycle taxi driver during my visit was a man whose smile touched his eyes but did not erase the omnipresent sadness that lived in them. His parents had been killed during the years of Pol Pot when he was just entering his teens, and he refused to accompany me when I entered the grounds of Tuol Sleng, the school that had been turned into a torture chamber , because that is the place that had made him an orphan. He took care of his younger brother as best as he could and they both survived.
He took me to his house in the rural outskirts of the city so I could meet his wife, his two small sons, and his baby daughter. His children all gleamed with the love that he gave them, healthy and happy. At one point during my time with them, my host tapped the side of a large and bulging burlap bag. “Rice,” he said proudly, “We eat it every day.”
When I read and reread The Clay Marble, it brings this memory so strongly to mind that I often find that I am in tears. Minfong Ho evokes the hunger of that dreadful time–for food, for family, for community, for the ability to know that a harvest of rice will soon be reaped, for the safety to sleep in one’s own house with safe and happy children close by.
Obviously I have emotional baggage that I bring with me to this book–would it have the same impact if I had not fallen in love with Cambodia? What about you? Does this book move you or is does it feel contrived? Is it an issue in search of a story or does it bring the refugee experience to life? Please let us all know what you think…
Since 2003 I've thought of Bush as an angry chimp leading the crusades,... so here's my sketch of that.
I always feel stir fry is really quick and easy. I cook my rice separately (love having a rice steamer.) Saute some veggies and voila! I do want to make that peanut sauce though!!
Hi Joyce. You must be a faster chopper than I am! Also I like to cook each veggie separately to ensure even cooking temps, which may be obsessive. Roasting means I obsess less. A steamer is great for steamed rice, but it’s quite a different result than fried rice. To each her own, right?