09.Nov.2011 Dude, Why Are People So Loyal to Canned Cranberry Sauce?
I love Thanksgiving. I’m practically obsessed with it. I call it at night and hang up on it just to hear its juicy, fattening voice before bed.
People who are particular about Thanksgiving food seem to have a weird attachment to canned and boxed ingredients. My mom is adamant that I not make cranberry sauce from scratch ever … even if she is not going to be there to eat it. Under the guise of wanting to save me time, she keeps insisting that I just use the canned stuff. After I say it’s no trouble (all you have to do to make cranberry sauce is boil some stuff), she usually drops it or goes and buys a can anyway if it’s for a meal at her house. It came up again and she finally said that the canned stuff was THE ONLY KIND that anyone should eat ever and would I stop talking about making it. I think I saw a tear. Lots of people have told me that eating a cranberry-flavored sculpture of a can is part of what makes Thanksgiving great.
I’ve almost convinced my mom to let me make gravy from scratch, but I’m pretty sure this was a compromise. (“If I say it’s OK to make gravy, maybe Marcia will stop with that homemade cranberry sauce nonsense.”) But she really would like me to just give up and go with some good old Franco American gravy in a can, from the makers of Spaghetti-Os. As far as I can tell, she is alone in this. But maybe not! People hate for Thanksgiving food to be homemade, apparently. She thinks I am a great cook, so this isn’t some passive-aggressive way to avoid eating my food. (I mean, she asks me to cook for her all the time, even at holidays when several other relatives have already volunteered to be chef.) In every non-Thanksgiving meal, she opts for fresh ingredients and home-cooked food. But Thanksgiving just brings out her desire for things in a can!
Stove Top boxed stuffing seems to engender similar devotion. I’ve heard people get ANGRY when there is homemade stuffing at a Thanksgiving meal. And I’m talking good stuffing and not some mushy bread or dry, crumbly mess. On TV and in movies about Thanksgiving, urban blue-collar, Midwestern and New England families have arguments about elaborate stuffing recipes passed down from generation to generation. Shenanigans, I say! The only stuffing-related kerfuffles I’ve witnessed have been someone complaining about not getting Stove Top stuffing. Maybe this is a West Coast thing, as for some reason TV Thanksgivings never take place in California.
I’ve heard some mumbles about that green bean/mushroom soup/canned onions jive or the whole yams/marshmallows/brown sugar deal or some kind of Jell-O thing involving fruit. But no one talks about these things with the same passion as they do CRANBERRY SAUCE SHAPED LIKE A CAN! and STOVE TOP STUFFING!
Despite my enthusiasm for Thanksgiving, I actually have very few rules about what makes a good Thanksgiving meal. I prefer a good homemade dish to the instant stuff, but I can get down with a box of Stove Top like nobody’s business, too.
This isn’t to say that I am super-breezy about the whole affair. There are rules.
Thanksgiving Rules
- No early bird special! It’s Thanksgiving dinner, so I don’t want to eat at noon or 2:00 or any other time that is not a dinner time.
- No naps! Why would you have a bunch of people over and then all nap like a bunch of preschoolers? Rude! Stop using tryptophan as an excuse. Turkey doesn’t make you that tired.
- No football! This is the most boring and slow sport in the world. It, and not turkey, is probably what is putting America to sleep on this holiday. Half the people at Thanksgiving probably aren’t interested in stupid old football anyway, so it’s also rude.
- No marshmallows! As long as there is turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing and a vegetable, I’m not picky about the specific preparations. But I am seriously confused about how the whole marshmallows on sweet potatoes thing got started. Gross.
Mom ain’t the only one: Bon Appetit panel prefers canned cranberry sauce
Photo by Ja-nelle
