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Are traditional Thanksgiving foods eaten all over America? East, West, North, and South?

By whites and people of color?

Have any Hispanics adopted the foods?

My family is from the east coast- mid Atlantic. We eat very traditional foods for T'giving. Turkey, stuffing, rutabagas, creamed onions, mashed potatoes, green beans- not casserole, cranberries, gravy and pie for dessert- pumpkin, apple and chocolate cream pie with real whipped cream. My children gather with their in-laws and have traditional meals these days and hubby and I gather with my sisters - eating basically the same foods for this feast as we grew up with. Oh always apple cider too.

Hubby's family didn't gather with family for T'giving and didn't have traditional feast etc. Some of his siblings do have turkey and trimmings with their children but not regularly- hit and miss.

The resident Okie Plautdietsch:
We had what was available. Maybe a duck, a rabbit, or maybe plummamous (prunes & raisins in a sort of 'pudding', but it's a main course, not a dessert) with ham & fried potatoes. Sometimes chicken or even turkey. But yeah, cranberry sauce! (If it was turkey, we had stuffing, not what they make around here. Can't remember the name right now. What is it? That stuff that was never stuffed into the turkey.)

I remember my Mexican American friend in 8th grade told me his Thanksgiving meal at home was a big spread of his favorite Mexican dishes.

Our church does “Thanksgiving boxes” for the poor in Cleveland every year. They give us a list of the. Foods & items which is all “traditional” except the can of black beans (?) trying to imagine that fitting in with the rest. They also have “extra” suggestions - just wondered how the black beans got to be part of the required items.

I suppose whatever ethnicity one hails from, their idea of a feast is what they are thankful for.

We have smoked turkey or ham and canned cranberry sauce, sometimes leather britches (dried green beans) soaked and cooked with ham hock, collards and all kinds of potatoes. Then depending on what’s cheapest we’ll eat deviled eggs and pumpkin pie or some other dessert depending on my wife’s decision. She’s the one that plans it and executes it so every year it’s a little different. It’s just us this year so we’re having whatever is on hand.

I can’t speak for what others do. Some folks I know don’t like turkey so they do something else.

We usually end up with several free turkeys, so turkey is common.

QuietlyListening wrote: ↑Thu Nov 20, 2025 5:11 pm My family is from the east coast- mid Atlantic. We eat very traditional foods for T'giving... rutabagas, creamed onions...

I don't think I've had those even once, let alone as a tradition.

Neto wrote: ↑Thu Nov 20, 2025 5:40 pm But yeah, cranberry sauce!

My family thinks I don't like cranberries, but that comes from an aversion to Grandma's practice of opening a can of the jelled stuff and slurping it into a fancy dish with the ridges from the can intact. I am happy to eat cranberries prepared just about any other way.

In recent years, two of my siblings moved down south, and now they bring up for Thanksgiving this sort of a food-like substance known as "greens" (to be pronounced GRAINS). I don't understand it. It appears to be a ham broth with chunks of ham, fair enough, that's what we call soup in the north; but it has this slimy dark green stuff swimming around in it that I just don't know about. It might be spinach, or collard greens, or turnip greens, or other questionable plants, weeds from the side of the road, I just don't know. They always rave about the 'greens,' but what I actually think they mean is they really, really like this average ham broth. That's the best I can figure anyhow.

mike wrote: ↑Fri Nov 21, 2025 11:57 am In recent years, two of my siblings moved down south, and now they bring up for Thanksgiving this sort of a food-like substance known as "greens" (to be pronounced GRAINS). I don't understand it. It appears to be a ham broth with chunks of ham, fair enough, that's what we call soup in the north; but it has this slimy dark green stuff swimming around in it that I just don't know about. It might be spinach, or collard greens, or turnip greens, or other questionable plants, weeds from the side of the road, I just don't know. They always rave about the 'greens,' but what I actually think they mean is they really, really like this average ham broth. That's the best I can figure anyhow.

My Mom’s family was from Arkansas and lived their “greens” I remember Grandma fixing big ol’ pots, with or without ham. Collard greens or turnip greens were the typical greens.

Greens were never part of our Thanksgiving meal.

mike wrote: ↑Fri Nov 21, 2025 11:57 am In recent years, two of my siblings moved down south, and now they bring up for Thanksgiving this sort of a food-like substance known as "greens" (to be pronounced GRAINS). I don't understand it. It appears to be a ham broth with chunks of ham, fair enough, that's what we call soup in the north; but it has this slimy dark green stuff swimming around in it that I just don't know about. It might be spinach, or collard greens, or turnip greens, or other questionable plants, weeds from the side of the road, I just don't know. They always rave about the 'greens,' but what I actually think they mean is they really, really like this average ham broth. That's the best I can figure anyhow.

Hmm... I suspect they are not collard greens because one of their notable features is the ability to hold texture and not become slimy. My grandmother would cook turnip and dandelion greens and those I didn't like but my mother grew collard greens and those I like quite a lot. They can also be frozen and they grow until frost or beyond if the weather is mild.