AIBU to find these traditional Thanksgiving dishes a bit much?

[longwayoff]

I spotted a recipe on Sunday for a 'modernised' green bean casserole. The original is green beans, can of mushroom soup poured over them, into oven for 30 mins, top with crispy onion rings. This is served with the Thanksgiving turkey alongside sweet potato pie topped with toasted marshmallows and other less weird things like stuffing and potatoes. How on earth can these have become traditional family favourites? Convince me someone.

Our family does not do the green bean casserole, or sweet potato/marshmallow concoctions.

My sister who has lived for decades in Cambridge (Massachusetts) finds (non junk) food in the U.K., least where I am in SW London, quite a bit cheaper than at home. A lot of the fresh food where she lives is imported from California or other far flung places. Presumably the long, very cold winters are not suited to quite a few crops.

And she'd be the first to say that US food tastes/habits can vary enormously according to area and to put it bluntly, levels of education finances/social class.
I dare say the latter is largely true of the UK, too.

toomanychilder
aversion as many Brits to serving sweet and savoury together for the same course.

The Brits that traditionally do cranberry sauce with turkey, redcurrant/cumberland sauce with whatever it is, apple sauce with pork, duck with cherry or orange sauce, pineapple on gammon....etc??
I was referring more to their almost 'dessert-y' side dishes such as the marshmallow sweet potatoes and ambrosia but the US versions of the various fruit sauce meat accompaniments you mention have no hint of the tartness, tang or bitterness which balances the sweetness - they are intensely almost toothachingly sweet.

What is with everyone wondering about Christmas and now Thanksgiving?! The OP isn't even American so I'm even more baffled- lightheaded btw.

Is cooking in tinned soup a bit like using premade stock? The only puzzling thing to me is combining green beans with mushroom.

Sweet potato casserole with marshmallows isn't a dessert; it's served like a vegetable side dish with the turkey. Personally, I quite liked it, but it was just one weird part of an almost entirely weird meal.

It is a bit like cooking with stock -- the "cream of whatever" everyone's vilifying is just stock (chicken, veg, beef) with some cream & flour.

Even with the mythical MN chicken being a thing I doubt every naysayer is doing their own stock every week.

They also serve up casseroles that are tins of creamy soup tinned pasta and grated cheese. Looks smells and tastes like baked vomit.

I like cooking and trying recipes from different countries but I can honestly say without any malice intended that I’ve yet to find an American recipe that I want to try. And yes, it’s usually because of the amount of canned soup used in cooking. I find myself thinking okay I can use x y and z instead of the soup but then I think nah, let’s look at something else from somewhere else.

Ewwww Watergate salad!

Love how it has listed as alternative names 'nasty church dessert' and 'barf' 😂

Why do you celebrate Thanksgiving if you're British

It can be really good fun trying something new just for the fun of it.

We always made the sweet potatoes by mashing them with crushed pineapple and cinnamon and then finishing with either a crispy brown sugar top or marshmallow meringue.

It is "traditional" because yams were one one of the "new" foods that native Americans introduced into the early settlers diet to help them survive when they were starving.

Do you mean me cycling? We don't celebrate Thanksgiving here as its a national USA thing. Although we know its history, pilgrims, hungry, maize etc. I just spotted the green beans recipe - and the sweet potato-and thought I'd ask about other traditional Thanksgiving food. I may cook some and if Pioneer Woman inspires me, might try some on the family at Christmas. Just a passing interest though, I wont be culturally appropriating the American national holiday.

Inertia you do know that the Watergate is a hotel?

The DNC offices broken into precipitating the “Watergate Scandal” were in the same complex.

I don’t know but I’d assume that Watergate Salad was a dish served at the hotel.

There's plenty of vile tinned food in the UK, plenty of awful casseroles, and stodgy food as far as the eye can see -- if we want to make generalisations.

Yes, if you're in a 1970s time warp.

I had a holiday in the US in the 90s and while I liked the people very much, the food seemed to be sweet, tasteless and designed to bring on an early death. I am always interested in discussions like these to see whether it has changed for the better.

Cor blimey mary poppins that 'watergate salad' is a crime against food. But dont be upset Americans, we are responsible for jellied eels, tripe and onions, spotted dick, mushy peas and other doubtful gourmet delights. And soggy veg.

An American friend showed me a map a while back of which parts of the US traditionally (not always, obvs!) serve which side with their thanksgiving turkey. I can't remember all the different regions and what they had because I'd already decided to head to whichever state served mac and cheese with it. That state is my spiritual home

Hey. Don't diss the spotted dick!

Traditional British bread sauce is awful. Does anyone actually like it?

TBH Copperbonnet I was being facetious, on the basis that something that bizarre must be a punishment.

Ah memories. I thought macaroni cheese was made by boiling macaroni, dropping it into some cheese sauce and slopping it onto a plate. Regard my horrified American friend who politely ate a little and offered to make it next time. Cook tomatoes and onions and garlic gently.. Put in base of casserole. Add some cooked macaroni. Add grated cheddar. Repeat in layers. Pour over a cheese sauce. Sprinkle with crispy bacon and parmesan. 20 mins in hot oven. USA WIN. No contest.

USA macaroni cheese involves fluorescent orange powder.

Choli, bread sauce is wonderful but you have to eat it with mash and other Christmas stuff. Useless on its own.

Oh no it most certainly does not. That's just what Kraft wants you to think.

Scotch eggs are fabulous. Orange mac and cheese less so but I do blame Kraft for that and bolloxing up our chocolate. Real mac and cheese sounds lush.