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.

children don’t you be dissin marmite now!

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

Its' wonderful when made properly, but it almost never is.

Real mac & cheese is serious business, never involves less than two cheeses, and is never orange. Bleh.

By the end of it I was absolutely desperate for some vegetables that weren't sweetcorn or salad

Sadly this was also my experience and I didn't set foot in a chain type restaurant place once.

I hate dissing a countries offerings but I do have to say I found my experience of food in the USA quite grim.

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

It's really not though. Campbells cream of mushroom, which is what would be used on the green beans, consists of WATER, MUSHROOMS, VEGETABLE OIL (CORN, COTTONSEED, CANOLA, AND/OR SOYBEAN), MODIFIED FOOD STARCH, WHEAT FLOUR, CONTAINS LESS THAN 2% OF: SALT, MONOSODIUM GLUTAMATE, SOY PROTEIN CONCENTRATE, DEHYDRATED CREAM (CREAM [MILK], SOY LECITHIN), YEAST EXTRACT, FLAVORING, DEHYDRATED GARLIC.

I mean, I'm fine with that and would use it no problem, but its not exactly the same as home made or even bought stock, is it?

No, but it's the same as any kitchen shortcut -- the commercially produced variant is probably going to be full of crap.

Last time I checked a supermarket, the aisles were full of comparably crap substitutes for relatively basic kitchen items. America doesn't corner the market on it by any stretch of the imagination.

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

I hate dissing a countries offerings but I do have to say I found my experience of food in the USA quite grim.

Based on these two statements I can only assume you are incapable of actually looking beyond the end of your nose.

It's incredibly easy to find amazing recipes and amazing food in the US, unless you're really determined not to.

USA macaroni cheese involves fluorescent orange powder.

See, that's a bit like me coming back from the UK and saying "All British bread is made of white plastic."

I make a really nice chicken and mushroom casserole using Campbell's soup...

It's like anywhere else, there is great food and there is terrible food. For example I used to live in Italy, for somewhere so proud of and obsessed with their food there are some bloody awful recipes and ready made stuff, as well as all the fantastic stuff.

USA macaroni cheese involves fluorescent orange powder.

I loved Kraft Dinner when I was a kid. I believe it's macaroni and cheese in the states as it is in Canada. Remember Joey's tv show on Friends, "Mac n Cheese"?

OK, sorry to derail but the whole green bean thing makes me think of creamed spinach like WTAF. But then again Australian line to eat burgers with a slice of beetroot and a slice of pineapple. Betrroy actually goes really well on a venison burger. I Oberon had a really nice one in tasmania white has a sourdough bun, venison burger, greated pickled beetroot, grated carrot, rocket, Spanish pinion and some aeoli type dressing pair with a moo brew larger. Very hungry now.

I really don't like most of the food in New England for thanksgiving. A lot of it is SO sweet.

I think I'd like a southern thanksgiving a lot more. I trying to convince Dh not to do the awful shit show that is the family thanksgiving and go away ourselves and have a stress free time for once!

Can't say greenbean casserole jumps out as a must try food but always assumed it was a US equivalent of a cauliflower/broccoli cheese with a roast dinner here in the UK

The green bean casserole sounds nice. I don't fancy the marshmallow/sweet potato combo, though.

"USA macaroni cheese involves fluorescent orange powder."

Well that's bullshit. You can buy plenty of shite packaged food in the UK. In fact I think it's more widespread that people eat ready meals, Dh was horrified when he went to UK supermarkets.

Mac and cheese really is a serious business. We even have completions locally. Lobster mac or blackened chicken with blue cheese mac are my favourites.

Damn now I'm hungry!

I think this sounds lovely: www.campbellsfoodservice.com/recipe/green-bean-casserole-made-with-campbells-cream-of-mushroom-soup/?l=search

Kraft Dinner? Is that a powder version of a cheese spread we used to have? Cheese Whizz? Spread in toast then grilled. Many years ago tho.

Ah I had lobster spaghetti the other day. Nearly died of happiness.

Got steamed lobsters from the supermarket last night too ($40 for 8). Ate them with sweetcorn also bought in the supermarket, which my English guests said tasted better than any corn they'd ever had in the UK, probably because it was freshly picked from the fields very shortly before. And a baguette - who said all the bread here is sweet? And some salad with a home made dressing that I made from a recipe I found on the internet despite there being no good American recipes to be had.

But you know. The food's shit here apparently.

My experience is that American food is far too often sweet when it shouldn’t be. And all baked goods tase of cinnamon powder.

But omg their meat and seafood is amazing. I’ve never had lobster or crab anywhere in Europe like I had in Maine and Connecticut.

American sweet corn is un-fucking-believable. I was never really a fan in the UK but I can't get enough of it here!

Fun fact: Canada celebrated Thanksgiving decades before the Americans!

Some years back, I was phoned by a friend who had just returned from a holiday in the US. We chatted, and then he said "Tom.... the food.." (at which point I expected him to tell me how great it was)...... "it's fucking awful".

Perhaps this is unfair. The US is large and populous and so there is lots of variety in the food. Cajun food is nice. However, the food of each nation of the world has general observable characteristics. With regard to American food, those characteristics are that it's made of 3 main ingredients: sugar, salt and aggressive marketing.

I concur with the above poster who never uses American recipes. With the exception of a walnut cake recipe that I've used twice, I've never found one I've liked the look of, because they use obscene amounts of sugar, salt or fat.

I've been to America three times and every time I've been surprised at how sweet and bland the food is. I've tried different cuisines while there and they seem to be toned to an American palate - bland.

I thought that such a melting pot of cultures would have excellent food, but it was as all meh.

Sweetcorn needs to be eaten very quickly after it is picked to be delicious. If you live near a farm which grows it and can buy it from a farm shop or stand and eat it soon after then it will be very good. I don't think it is commonly grown in the UK but I have had it fresh in both England and North America and it was very good. This is true for many fruit and vegetables of course, but especially so for sweet corn (and peas).

The thing we found in the US (we lived in NYC but have found the same to be true in other places) is that supermarkets are generally not as good as in the UK. This may be due to long supply chains or just because people interested in better quality ingredients shop at more specialist stores rather than getting everything from one place. Competition in the UK is very fierce too. Also in North America food sold in supermarkets may have traveled further and be on the shelf for longer so more likely to have various preservatives (including sweeteners) as they need to last. In NYC when we bought standard packaged bread from the supermarket it did taste very sweet to us but when we found a bagel store those were delicious.