4th Thursday of November

Saucyman – Any ideas on something new, different and exciting for the Thanksgiving table? Coolly Whipped

Thanksgiving is viewed as a superior holiday in Saucyland. It is like Mardi Gras, well, except for its Thursday not Tuesday. And instead of beads and parades, it’s turkey and stuffing and those aren't thrown (generally). If not exactly an autumnal Mardi Gras, Thanksgiving is certainly analogous in spirit – while the celebration is certainly about the day – it is equally about the planning the meal, enjoying the labor that goes into making the day as well as the pleasure of the food, drink and companionship.

After hosting the big day for dozens of years and hundreds of people, I have learned, people don’t want innovation, new foods and to be culinarily challenged on Thanksgiving. Generally, the friends and family you share your holiday meal with want familiar dishes. And if you try to get too creative and inventive, you will loose you audience - even if it is the best thing you have ever cooked, getting people to try something new on a traditional day is a hard sell.

For instance, years ago I went back to the drawing board and I decided to make succotash. As in suffering succotash, as in the classic dish of New England natives featuring a combination bean, corn and usually tomatoes. Having never had a good experience with lima beans, I substituted pinto beans. I added fresh thyme, dried chilies, baked sweet potato and a little cider vinegar to cut through the taste of the beans and contrast the sweetness of the corn.

It was good, not in the narcissistic way that you think the food you cook is better than food others prepare, a term Friend of Saucyman - Keith Weber - coined as gastrocism. The dish tasted really good, a beautiful harmony of flavor and textures. And unfortunately, there are no witnesses to testify to this fact, since I was the only one who ate it. And it was a shame too because that recipe, really did take the suck out of succotash.

Cranberries are another example. Most of the time, dinner companions want something that resembles the jelled cranberry relish of their youth, if not to eat, then at least to be reminded of tradition. Over the years, different variations on cranberry relish have hit the Thanksgiving table: A friend made Susan Stamberg’s shocking pink cranberry horseradish relish, which is surprisingly good, but ultimately went the way of the succotash.

Not all of the attempts have failed. If you want cranberries to be present without cooking the back of the bag recipe there are other ways they can be represented - Cranberry sorbet has been a popularly received. A few cranberries in the stuffing/dressing keep the ingredient discretely present at the table. A nice aperitif made of cranberry juice, orange juice and vodka – (A Turkeypolitan? A Cosmogiving?) has all the familiar flavors of the holiday favorite without all avant-garde about the whole thing.

The point is with thought and planning, there are ways to take something familiar, occasionally worn to cliché/abused to mediocrity and make it new and exciting again. To help the improve, if not the day, than at least the meal, for November, Saucyman is dedicating its digital pages to making a better Thanksgiving for you and yours – with a feature called the 12 Posts of Thanksgiving. A few recipes will be sprinkled in such topics as the kids table, to brine or not to brine, turkey substitutes (Tofurkey?, how about just no turkey then), crustless pie, stuffing, wild rice and wine suggestions along with some other topics.