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Amy traverso wikipedia8/3/2023 There’s a pumpkin brand that’s regional called One-Pie. What other canned or prepared ingredients are classic to New England? If you really feel strongly about making another side dish, then you would make your own cranberry sauce. I think the classic jellied cranberry sauce is still pretty dominant. On the other hand, my dad likes to make a simple sauce of cranberries cooked with sugar and orange juice and it’s yummy. I 100 percent grew up with Ocean Spray jellied cranberry sauce. It really is a mix, because this is the home of Ocean Spray. What about cranberry sauce or cranberry relish? If you were going to go to Rhode Island, you might start with a clear chowder, whereas in Maine you have a creamy chowder. You also see a lot more seafood on your table if you’re in coastal Maine for Thanksgiving. In Maine, which is still a major potato growing region, you certainly see mashed potatoes, but also potatoes worked into breads and stuffings. I think there are various regional differences that you can trace back to the history of the region. Are there differences between the states or regions when it comes to Thanksgiving? New England is sometimes wrongly considered a monolith. There is also a tradition of oysters in the stuffing here. Oysters would be the most common thing to start with as a light starter or hors d’oeuvres. I’m sure there are people who serve a chowder or incorporate lobster into the meal. We did Brussels sprouts with maple glaze walnut and mashed potatoes with cheddar crisps, and then we did a pumpkin pie that has a layer of fluff so you have a fluff and cream cheese layer and then a pumpkin layer on top. So I came up with this menu where the turkey is brined with molasses and has a cider glaze, the stuffing is made with cornbread and brown bread - a classic New England bread that’s sweetened with molasses and made with corn, rye, and wheat flour. Growing up in New England, I ate peanut butter and fluff sandwiches, and they’re totally delicious. Those would include apple cider, molasses, cheddar cheese, pumpkin, and marshmallow fluff, which is kind of like a marshmallow mousse that’s very sweet and fluffy and marshmallowy. Knowing where we are in history and knowing that there’s a lot of scary changes happening right now and a lot of anxiety, I wanted to do a menu for the magazine this year that paid homage to iconic New England foods but put a fresh spin on them. In my experience, people will have that heirloom family recipe that gets made over and over again, but there’s always room for something new, and I think people enjoy a little bit of variety. With such strong traditions regarding the dishes, is there room to play around with the classics?Īs a recipe developer, I assume that when I do a menu for our November issue that readers might try one of the recipes - they’re probably not going to make the whole menu. That would be the mashed potatoes, the stuffing, the turkey, some form of pumpkin pie, and some form of cranberry sauce. People may feel like they need to have a certain set of dishes on the menu for it to feel like Thanksgiving. Not so much stuffing and pumpkin pie, but watercress and dried berries - those kinds of foods would have been abundant.īut I think the idealized classic Thanksgiving menu, which was an invention of the Victorian era, definitely holds a lot of sway. You would’ve seen corn and beans and squash. I’ve always been interested in talking with food historians about what would have been served in the original harvest feast, and you know, it’s quite different from what we eat today.Ĭertainly turkey would have been an option, along with probably venison. It was different from what the story became, but there was a harvest feast that happened in Massachusetts. I think New Englanders do feel a sense of the history that happened here. I grew up in Connecticut, and when you’re a kid and you see pictures of Thanksgiving - of the wholly invented notion of the first Thanksgiving and the popular idea of it, which isn’t really based in history.īut you see the landscape growing up in New England that looks very similar to the landscape I see out of my window. What are your thoughts on how Thanksgiving is somewhat idolized in New England? This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and space. We spoke with Traverso about the importance of Thanksgiving in New England and the dishes that best exemplify the region’s traditions. Not to mention she’s helped shape the idea of a New England Thanksgiving herself through her work writing and editing stories about Thanksgiving culture, as well as creating recipes for Yankee. New England, however, is home, and Traverso has gathered a wealth of knowledge about the region’s Thanksgiving history.
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