Friday OT #2 - Avoid the Masses

[Angie]

Ma boy @JM4CY sent me this idea this week! I'm going to paste his exact description, because it's better than any phrasing I can do:

With the holidays vastly approaching and with covid potentially preventing us from seeing certain relatives, What is one food that you are glad you don’t have to pretend to like this year? Or asked another and more simple way, what is one food you have had to endure through the years that’s brought to family functions by a relative who can’t cook worth a damn?

I'm going to have him share his example, because it's really good, so I'll share mine. I love my mom more than any woman who isn't my own child, but she will be the first to admit she's not a good cook. When I was little, she was more in-practice as she had to feed us, and she used to make some scalloped corn that I loved. The only problem is that it could sometimes be undercooked, and the middle would be really soupy and inedible. As she's gotten more rusty, it's skewed toward the soup more often. But she's SO sweet, she'll make me an entire pan for myself because I love it when it's cooked all of the way, and I don't want to ever hurt her feelings.

What are yours?

 

[carvers4math]

MIL’s orange cranberry relish. Ick. I like cranberries, I like oranges, I like my cranberry orange muffins. Whatever she does to them to make that relish, it’s like a a sugar overload.

She’s in Canada, Thanksgiving was weeks ago, and border is closed. Yea! Plus last year, she was under the weather and her sons in law and I wound up cooking everything except that gross relish, which she made despite her bad knee.

 

[madguy30]

I'm gonna flip it. My family always had a pot of oysters going around, and it wasn't until a couple of years ago that I actually tried it, and by gosh it was pretty good.

So I'll be hopping back off of that train this year.

 

[CYdTracked]

Probably will still do some form of holidays with both sides of the family but not as big of a gathering as usual I would assume. That being said I do not like sweet potatoes and usually pass on them anyways. Other than that I can't really think of anything either side of the family makes that I am not a fan of.

 

[carvers4math]

Probably will still do some form of holidays with both sides of the family but not as big of a gathering as usual I would assume. That being said I do not like sweet potatoes and usually pass on them anyways. Other than that I can't really think of anything either side of the family makes that I am not a fan of.

That reminds me, I love sweet potatoes. I hate MIL’s version shock full of maple syrup, butter, and marshmallows. They also shame me for not putting whipped cream on pumpkin pie.

 

[BMWallace]

Marshmallow jello fluff. It is usually a pale green color, and the combination of textures and flavor have never clicked for me. But at basically every family gathering, someone brings it.

 

[JM4CY]

Marshmallow jello fluff. It is usually a pale green color, and the combination of textures and flavor have never clicked for me. But at basically every family gathering, someone brings it.

What is with that crap?

 

[Angie]

Marshmallow jello fluff. It is usually a pale green color, and the combination of textures and flavor have never clicked for me. But at basically every family gathering, someone brings it.

And, like, sometimes it has rogue celery tidbits in it?

 

[Clonefan32]

My wife's family does just a plain turkey, very mildly seasoned, roasted in a roaster. I'm not sure there is anything worse than a dry, under-seasoned piece of turkey breast. There's not enough gravy in the World to save it.

 

[Angie]

My wife's family does just a plain turkey, very mildly seasoned, roasted in a roaster. I'm not sure there is anything worse than a dry, under-seasoned piece of turkey breast. There's not enough gravy in the World to save it.

Yeah, I'm not the biggest fan of the origins of Thanksgiving already, and then we celebrate it by eating the most flavorless meat, usually cooked in a way that lends it absolutely nothing. But wait, there are also green beans in some creamy soup! It's a bit of a chore, unless someone smokes the turkey or does a great brine or something.

 

[JM4CY]

My grandmother makes the weirdest, ever-changing jello dessert when I visit. I swear to god: she makes jello and just throws whatever is in the fridge or around the counter for produce about to go bad (or already bad) into it. Most recently, I had to suck down green Jello that had old bananas and expired cottage cheese. Absolutely. Freakin’. Terrible.

The hell of it is, I could have avoided this for years because several years ago when she started this culinary assault, she fixed up something similar the monstrosity described above with jello and random, near death items. I lied to her (Cmon, it’s my grandma and I’m not a d*ck) and said “grandma this is sooo good”. And OF COURSE she was like “well I am so happy you like it!!! I will try to make it every time I see you!!! You’re own special treat”.

F.M.L

Now, sure as sh*t, whenever I go there, there’s another version damn desert (“Jello of Death”) and she’s all excited for me to eat it and I don’t have the stomach (or heart, rather) to tell her it’s awful.

 

[coolerifyoudid]

My wife's family does just a plain turkey, very mildly seasoned, roasted in a roaster. I'm not sure there is anything worse than a dry, under-seasoned piece of turkey breast. There's not enough gravy in the World to save it.

The insistence on having turkey baffles me. It's easy to overcook, it doesn't re-heat well and it's really not that great in the first place. I've had some that is good, but there are so many better main course options out there.

 

[cmjh10]

My wife's family does just a plain turkey, very mildly seasoned, roasted in a roaster. I'm not sure there is anything worse than a dry, under-seasoned piece of turkey breast. There's not enough gravy in the World to save it.

Although, when done right, turkey breast is amazing.

 

[mapnerd]

Probably an unpopular opinion: pumpkin pie is absolutely disgusting.
Also - we’ve replaced turkey on thanksgiving with fried chicken. We’ve never looked back.

 

[JM4CY]

My wife's family does just a plain turkey, very mildly seasoned, roasted in a roaster. I'm not sure there is anything worse than a dry, under-seasoned piece of turkey breast. There's not enough gravy in the World to save it.

I have family that used to do this too. It’s like they prefer bad food. Makes no sense to me. Just google “how not to screw up turkey”

 

[Clonefan32]

The insistence on having turkey baffles me. It's easy to overcook, it doesn't re-heat well and it's really not that great in the first place. I've had some that is good, but there are so many better main course options out there.

I've taken to brining and smoking our turkey and it really is pretty good. But yah, your traditional oven-roasted Butterball is pretty bad and there's not a ton of ways to make it good.

 

[dosry5]

Meat Jello. Except I never pretend to like. Won’t even touch it. At least this year I don’t have to even look at it. Or smell it.

 

[JM4CY]

Probably an unpopular opinion: pumpkin pie is absolutely disgusting.
Also - we’ve replaced turkey on thanksgiving with fried chicken. We’ve never looked back.

 

[Angie]

Probably an unpopular opinion: pumpkin pie is absolutely disgusting.
Also - we’ve replaced turkey on thanksgiving with fried chicken. We’ve never looked back.

Pumpkin pie is just brown mush. At least pumpkin bars usually have cream cheese frosting that sort of redeems them? We always have an alternate pie selection.

I love your family's style. Fried chicken would be 1000x better.

 

[coolerifyoudid]

My wife's family has a tradition with drinking Welch's sparkling non-alcoholic grape juice for holidays. It's nostalgic for them since their parents would give it to the kids in wine glasses.

The issue is they still drink that crap as adults. I went along with it for a few years, but now when I raise my glass to toast, it's filled with something that doesn't taste like ****.