Thanksgiving by the Box
I love Thanksgiving, the all-American holiday that reminds us to give thanks for our blessings and celebrate amidst a bounty of food. Kitchens smell of turkey roasting, pies baking and good things simmering. It’s a simply delicious holiday, celebrated for all the best reasons.
I have my standards. We order a free-range turkey from Whole Foods because we find these turkeys more meaty and more flavorful. And I always make cornbread stuffing from The New York Times International Cookbook, which requires grinding the giblets in a meat grinder, baking cornbread and endlessly chopping onion, celery and green pepper, as well as mincing a lot of garlic, parsley and basil.
BUT I also make pumpkin pie from the recipe on the Libby’s pumpkin can, a Crisco pie crust and the cranberry sauce recipe on the Ocean Spray bag. Sure I’ve toyed with making pumpkin creme brulee or pumpkin cheesecake, using a different crust and making fresh cranberry salsa. But these recipes are tried-and-true and simple, giving me time to explore new recipes for the second dessert I bake and all the side dishes.
Some foodies may discount using recipe from a can, box or bag of a commercial product, but having been director of a professional test kitchen, the Ketchum Food Center, I beg to disagree. When a manufacturer invests in recipe development, the point is to show its product in the best light. A good test kitchen will take into account the capabilities of the ingredient and the needs of the target audience. There is a genuine desire to make the ingredient the best it can be in a recipe as foolproof as possible to ensure a happy result. This benefits the company and the consumer.
Granted, there are manufacturers and recipe developers who have no integrity, creating ridiculous recipes to follow a trend, ill-using ingredients where they don’t belong. I’m sure you’ve encountered those, too. So you do need to use some common (food) sense in making your selections. I tend to forget about such recipes, because as a food marketer and former food editor, determined to give my client’s products the best opportunity to shine, I would never go there.
Last Thanksgiving, my son’s girfriend from Thailand who has an MBA degree asked innocently if Thanksgiving were a creation of the turkey growers. It set me musing on the role food manufacturers have played in the holiday. Here’s a reprise of that story.
This Thanksgiving is a bittersweet one, with the depressing economy and more people out of work. We’ll be making a donation to St. Anthony’s here in San Francisco, an extraordinary organization providing a Thanksgiving feast to those in need. No doubt you will be making your contributions to help the hungry, too.
Happy Thanksgiving to all and may better times lie ahead.
