Thanksgiving: A Comparison

For nearly twenty years (we have been married almost 15 years, and we dated for five years before we got married), my wife and I have enjoyed two “dinners” on Thanksgiving. We start off at my parent’s house and eat the “early” dinner and then we go to my in-laws for the “late” dinner. For the last twenty years, the menu, as well as, the routine has stayed the same. Sure, there are the occasional surprises, but for the most part Thanksgiving has remained the same for the last 20 years. The only real difference is that my wife and I, as well as, our brothers and sisters are now bringing more and more of dinner (although everyone seems to bring the same thing year after year).

My wife and I seem to have settled into the role of bringing the apple pie and the birthday cake (as we celebrate my youngest son’s birthday with the families on Thanksgiving). I don’t remember my mother’s or my mother-in-laws’ apple pie anymore, my wife has been making hers for so long. She makes a pretty good pie though.

We have turkey with both dinners and neither one is better than another. My mother always serves ham at Thanksgiving (in fact, we brought the ham this year), but my mother-in-law doesn’t. Now, personally, I love honey-baked ham and so do my children, so this is one advantage my mother has over my mother-in-law.

I also have to give my mother the advantage on stuffing. As much as I hesitate to say it because my mother-in-law could read this, my mother’s stuffing beats my mother-in-laws stuffing hands down. I can’t really put a finger on it, other than my mom uses bigger pieces of bread in her stuffing and it is generally moister. I think I like my mother’s stuffing better because it is what I grew up with.

Now, one sister-in-law on each side of the family is responsible for the mashed-potatoes. This is where my wife’s side of the family has the advantage, and this comes down to horseradish. One sister-in-law loads her potatoes up with horseradish, the other loads hers up with butter and milk. I don’t care for horseradish, so her potatoes are not my favorite.

I really like the sweet potatoes with the marshmallows baked on top. Again, I think this is my preference because it is what I grew up with. My mother-in-law hasn’t been able to settle on a sweet potato recipe. One year she will do marshmallow, the next walnuts and syrup, one year they are whipped and the next they are not. My mom’s sweet potatoes get my nod.

The green bean casserole, with the fried onion on top is a staple of my mom’s dinner, but not so with my in-laws. Again, one of my sister-in-laws has taken over the green-bean duty here, and she usually brings a green bean, bacon, garlic combo that is really, really good. This year she tried a cheesy green bean concoction, which was okay, but not as good as the bean, bacon, garlic combo.

The biggest difference in desert is what defines a cherry pie. Now my mom makes a cherry pie with the traditional pie crust and cherry filling, while my mother-in-law serves a cherry cheesecake. Both are yummy, my all-time favorite is my mother’s cherry pie, again because I grew up with it.

So who serves the better Thanksgiving dinner my mother or my mother-in-law? I am not sure I have had a large enough sample yet. Twenty years simply isn’t enough time to make this decision. I need a couple more years.