Thanksgiving geekery

[petrea_mitchell]

1. Dork Tower examines the tradeoffs of Thanksgiving meals this year. I was looking to support a local restaurant, but couldn't find one offering a take-home turkey meal that didn't include a green bean casserole.

2. FiveThirtyEight on regional variations in Thanksgiving dinners. The Thanksgiving dinners of my childhood were definitely shaped by the previous two generations of my family all being from New England. My mom loves squash, my dad always made apple pies, and the cranberry sauce was always homemade.

3. Bloomberg on where the major Thanksgiving ingredients are grown. Oregon is not an intensively farmed state, so I was surprised to see it come up so much.

Comments

[kevin_standlee]

A turkey is too much for two people, and Lisa and I don't like turkey that much anyway, so we get a duck instead.

One of Oregon's produce products that I miss being able to get close to the source are their blueberries. During the season, they were almost free, it seemed.

[athenais]

My family are all from Portland or nearby towns going back about 100 years. We did not have salad for Thanksgiving dinner, ever, nor do I understand why it appears to have such a strong grip on the nation west of the Rockies. Pies were always pumpkin and apple, it not being cherry season in Washington State. We did always have rolls of some sort as a side dish no matter which relative's house we went to. So I dunno about that chart.

[darkoshi]

I'd never heard of people having cherry pie for Thanksgiving. Even though a side of my family is from California.

The only thing listed in the 2nd link that I had this year was salad and pecan pie. I'm surprised mashed potatoes weren't mentioned. Actually, now I've checked their data file, and mashed potatoes was one of the most popular items. Maybe it wasn't listed due to it not being more popular in any particular region.