I passed the age of 40 without learning to drink coffee, even though I grew up in the United States where everyone, including my parents, drinks coffee. Despite these cultural influences,
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Think of Christmas foods and you probably think about cookies and maybe hot cocoa. But what about food that isn’t sugar-laden? What do you eat for Christmas that isn’t desserts?
Looking for Christmas dinner recipes online gives any number of options. Are there traditional Christmas meal foods? In the United States, Christmas traditions come from a variety of cultures. This includes the food! A traditional Christmas dinner inspired by British culture might include a turkey (more traditionally, a goose) and a firm pudding soaked in alcohol. Potatoes and other vegetables serve as side dishes. Also from historic England comes the Christmas ham. In Tudor times, this would have been a boar’s head. I would say there is more meat in a ham than in a head! From Italy comes the Christmas Eve seafood dinner. Depending on where you live, you might not ever have associated seafood with Christmas, but for many families in the United States, the two go together without question. Americans of Polish heritage might associate foods like borscht, mushrooms, fish, and perogies with Christmas. Mexico brings to the Christmas table tamales, roast pork, and a fruit salad. There are many other cultures that influence what North Americans eat for the Christmas season. Still, there are a few common factors. Christmas foods tend to be things that were historically expensive or cheaper alternatives to those expensive foods. A Christmas dinner tended to include one or more types of meat, many vegetables (out-of-season ones if you were rich), and lots of sweets and alcohol. If you’ve never had a Christmas food tradition but want to make one, consider your heritage, then experiment with traditional Christmas recipes from that country. Whatever your food restrictions and preferences are, there’s sure to be at least one recipe that you can make your signature Christmas dish. What are traditional Thanksgiving foods? For this post, “traditional” means things that show up in U.S. commercials, Hallmark movies, and the like. In other words, “traditional” for this post means the things people would likely say on Family Feud if asked to name a Thanksgiving food. Even so, keep in mind that the U.S. is made up of people from many cultures. This diversity will be reflected in the foods traditionally eaten at holidays, even if they aren’t listed in traditional Thanksgiving menus. Breads Dinner rolls are traditionally served at Thanksgiving dinner in the U.S. Some families prefer Pillsbury Crescents. Other yeast breads and rolls may be served at Thanksgiving, but in the US, the traditional Thanksgiving dinner rolls will always be made with white flour and yeast. Cornbread may also be served at Thanksgiving, but it is not as common on a traditional menu as yeast dinner rolls. Sometimes cornbread is made into a casserole or pudding. Dressing, or stuffing, made from stale white bread cubes and seasoned with sage and celery is essential for many Thanksgiving tables. Bread dressing, or stuffing, is served as a savory side dish. Dressing, or stuffing, may also be made with cornbread. Vegetables Other Than Potatoes Green beans, carrots, and corn are often served as Thanksgiving side dishes. Exactly how they are prepared varies. Only one or two of the three vegetables may be served. Other vegetables may also be included in the menu. Green bean casserole, often topped with McCormick’s Crispy Fried Onions, is nearly as synonymous with Thanksgiving dinner as turkey is. Green bean casserole is either comfort food or an acquired taste. Broccoli casserole is an alternative to green bean casserole. Like green bean casserole, there are many variations to broccoli casserole. Brussels sprouts are less common than green beans, but they still show up on many Thanksgiving menus. Often, Brussels sprouts are roasted. Carrots, usually glazed in a sweet sauce, are another brightly colored vegetable that shows up on Thanksgiving tables. It is possible to find recipes for savory carrots, but the more traditional preparations use honey or brown sugar. Corn kernels may be served boiled and topped with butter, salt, and pepper. They may also be creamed or made into corn pudding. Corn pudding, like green bean casserole, is either comfort food or an acquired taste. Corn pudding also straddles the line between side dish and dessert, like sweet potatoes with marshmallows does. Curiously, seasonal vegetables like acorn squash are not part of traditional Thanksgiving dinner menus. Meat Turkey is the most well-known protein that is served on Thanksgiving Day. Some families in the U.S. serve other meat instead. Examples include ham, roast beef, goose, or seafood. Today there are vegetarian protein options to replace the meat course, but these would not be considered traditional Thanksgiving foods. Potatoes and Other Starches Mashed potatoes, often with brown gravy made from the turkey drippings, are a traditional Thanksgiving side dish. Sweet potatoes are another common Thanksgiving side dish. You can decide if sweet potato casserole with mini marshmallows is a side dish or a dessert. Other preparations of white or Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, and yams are also traditional Thanksgiving side dishes. Relishes Cranberry sauce is the traditional relish for turkey. Cranberry sauce can be jellied and smooth or have whole cranberries. Whole-berry cranberry sauce is easy to make and there are many variations. Desserts
Pies are the dessert of choice for a traditional US Thanksgiving dinner. Pumpkin pie is most associated with Thanksgiving. Apple pie is a close second. Sweet potato pie is an alternate choice to pumpkin pie. Some people will argue over whether pumpkin or sweet potato pie is best. Personally, I like a slice of each. Other desserts are served at Thanksgiving, but pie wins in popularity for traditional menus. Usually, multiple types of pie are served. Beverages To my knowledge, there are no traditional Thanksgiving beverages or drinks that are culturally associated with the holiday. My vote is to serve apple cider, since that is culturally associated with autumn and Thanksgiving is a fall holiday. Fun to smash, heavy to carry
When served for dinner, we seldom tarry. Green to bright, orange is very Popular tonight, but never hairy. Best pureed, tricking the wary Breads and pies sweetly nutrients ferry. How do you grow a pumpkin? 1. Preparing the Pumpkin Patch Before you plant your first pumpkin, you’ll need to pick a spot where the vines can spread out. Garden Beast recommends giving 4-10 feet between pumpkin plants, depending on the variety. I’ve seen other sites say that some varieties can sprawl up to 17 feet! Next, you’ll need to work on the soil. Pumpkins like loamy soil, so if your garden patch is mostly clay or sand, you’ll have some work to do. Of course, it is possible to plant pumpkins in any type of soil, but they might not grow well. The plants might be smaller than the package advertises. You might end up with plants that have a lot of leaves but don’t produce fruit. The pumpkin plants might have other problems or simply fail to thrive. Dirt Connections explains what loam soil is and how to achieve it in your garden. It’s a years-long process, so be patient and persistent! 2. Selecting Pumpkin Varieties When you’re ready to plant, select a pumpkin variety that you like and is suited to your space. These are some questions to help you pick the best pumpkin for your garden.
The answers to these questions will narrow down the type of pumpkins for you to pick from. 3. Planting and Growing Pumpkins
Pumpkins are best planted in late spring or early summer - pumpkins like warm weather and lots of sun. The variety you pick will recommend a planting time for where you live. You can plant pumpkin seeds directly in your garden or start seeds indoors and transplant the seedlings when it gets warm enough. Pumpkins will grow best with at least 6 hours of sunlight each day, a weekly deep watering, and a fertilizer feed every week or two. Once fruit begins to form, you may want to put it on a brick or something similar to keep it off the ground. This can help the mature fruit to look prettier. You may also choose to cut away any leaves shading the developing fruit so that it gets enough sun to grow to its full potential. Gardeners’ World has tips on growing pumpkins and storing mature fruit. Pumpkins are a squash species. Many varieties of pumpkins can be eaten. Most people in the United States know about pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread, but how else can you eat pumpkins? Savory Ways to Eat Pumpkins Baked There are plenty of recipes online, but the basic concept is this:
Curry If you grew up in the US, you might not immediately associate pumpkin with curry, but the firm flesh and adaptable flavor make it a good choice for adding another colorful vegetable to your plate. This recipe from Thai Table looks good. Stew The firm and colorful flesh of pumpkins make them a good addition to stews. You can use chunks of pumpkin instead of potatoes in just about any hearty stew. Or, like this recipe on An Italian in My Kitchen, you can use potatoes and pumpkins together. Sweet Ways to Eat Pumpkins
This is the easy one. Recipes for using pumpkins in sweet dishes are all over the internet. Here are some categories to get you started looking.
How can pumpkins be used for decorating?
Whole pumpkins can be used to decorate
And any place else you can put a gourd! How can you decorate with small pumpkins? Small pumpkins, like Jack Be Little, are best for tablescapes and grouping in baskets. Pick one variety in the same color for a monochromatic look or mix it up with different colors and shapes. Find a container and pile in the gourds! If your container is a plastic storage tub, wrap a wide ribbon around it or drape fabric over the sides so that the arrangement looks intentional. A plastic tub with things piled in it might look like sloppy storage, but thoughtfully staging the container will make it look like an intentional decorating choice. Don’t limit yourself to baskets and bowls. If the pumpkin will fit in it, try it out as decoration! Consider using glass jars, decorative glass lanterns, milk crates, terrariums, cloches (bell jars), wagons, children’s rideable cars or bikes, wheelbarrows, or anything else you have on hand. How can you decorate with medium-sized pumpkins? Medium pumpkins, like Casper pumpkins, are good for doorsteps or pairing with hay bales for a fall party. For a small stoop, put a single medium pumpkin on a step and a chrysanthemum on a step above or below it. For a larger porch, you might want a pumpkin on each step or grouped on the porch. You could have a size or color gradation moving down the steps. Start with the smallest pumpkin at the top and have the largest one on the bottom step. Or put a pale green pumpkin on the bottom step and slowly brighten to a full orange pumpkin on the top stop. Your options are only limited by your imagination. Don’t be afraid of doing it “wrong.” Play around with arrangements and when you like what you see, show it off with confidence! To use pumpkins for a reception or other large party, you could use different color or style pumpkins to mark different areas. For example, the smooth orange pumpkins could indicate the food area, the warty green and orange pumpkins could line the dance floor, and the green pumpkins could mark off the smoking zone. How can you decorate with large pumpkins? Large pumpkins, like Big Moon, can grow up to several hundred pounds and may be more challenging to use in home decorating than smaller varieties. I suppose if you had a large field or room and the machinery to move the pumpkins, they could make whimsical path markers or those benches that you lean against without sitting. How do you prepare pumpkins for decorating? For short term decorating, most store-bought pumpkins are fine to be used as they are. If you want to use pumpkins longer, you’ll need to remove bacteria and cure the gourd. Here is one way of helping to slow down a pumpkin’s decay. 1. There may be hundreds of varieties of pumpkins.
I couldn’t find a precise number that was repeated on different sites, but I did find a number over 100 more than once. This Master Gardener claims there are over 300 pumpkin varieties. Master Gardeners tend to care about getting their facts right, so I’ll believe her. 2. Pumpkins come in five main colors. Most pumpkins are a variation or combination of one of these five colors:
3. Illinois produces most of the pumpkins sold in the U.S. Most of the pumpkins in Illinois are grown for commercial uses like making canned pumpkin. 4. The US prefers its pumpkins in sweet baked goods. An internet search for pumpkin recipes was overwhelmingly sweet foods, mostly of the pie, muffin, or cookie variety. 5. Pumpkins can be healthy to eat. Pumpkins contain vitamins A, C, E, potassium, fiber, and other good-for-you things. 6. Pumpkins are related to cucumbers, watermelon, and zucchini. That’s because all these fruits are gourds.
Poem 1 Could you bring me my favorite? And join me to savor it? Not saying that we’ll cave for it. Dinner will wait for it. You know which is my favorite. Poem 2 Crunchy, creamy, cocoa, and crisp Apple, soda, pizza, and pie Not a flavor is let go by Daring and odd, fads are a wisp You leave them behind with a sigh Poem 3 Can I eat it all the day And never think of how much I weigh? No, not really, if longevity in good health is your goal Do think carefully on the caramel roll. Your choices today in tomorrow will have a say. How did Dum-Dums get their name? Dum-Dums were invented in 1924. The name was chosen because the inventor thought it would be easy for children to remember. How popular are Dum-Dums? Spangler, the company that makes Dum Dums, claims to produce 12 million Dum-Dums per day. These lollipops are often given out by businesses. From my experience, the reason Dum-Dums are so popular as give-aways is that they are cheap and they don’t contain most allergens. Interestingly, given how cheap Dum-Dums are and that they are safe for most people with food allergies, Dum-Dum lollipops do not make the list of top Halloween candies. How many Dum-Dum flavors are there? Dum-Dum flavors come and go. There were seven original flavors. Now, there are about 16 standard flavors. There are also many novelty flavors, like S’mores and Pizza, added and removed here and there.
How did tootsie rolls get their name?
Tootsie Rolls are named after the inventor’s daughter. I wonder how much Clara was teased when her classmates found out a candy was named after her? Did she ever escape being asked for free candy? Did selfish boys think she was supposed to be “sweet” and give them whatever affection they wanted? Did she hate her pet name but her father loved it? And if, like me, you thought tootsie as a pet name referred to being very flatulent, apparently, “Toots” and its variations was a common term of endearment given to women in the late 19th to mid 20th centuries. What role did Tootsie Rolls play in wars? In WWII, Tootsie Rolls were given to soldiers because they didn’t melt like regular chocolate. In the Korean War, Marines used Tootsie Rolls to repair bullet holes, presumably in equipment. They plastered the warm candy onto the hole and it stayed when the candy froze. What flavor are Tootsie Rolls? Traditional Tootsie Rolls have cocoa and a fruit flavor. Looking at different recipes for making Tootsie Rolls knock-offs at home, often, no fruit extract is used. Some sites suggest that Tootsie Rolls have an orange undertone flavor. Today, there are also other flavors of Tootsie Rolls made by the Tootsie Roll company. Vanilla is one example. How many Tootsie Rolls are sold in a year? I couldn’t find out how many Tootsie Rolls are sold each year in the U.S. Stock Analysis says that Tootsie Roll Industries had a fiscal year 2022 revenue of over $725 M. That’s for all the company’s products, though, not just Tootsie Rolls.
Where were Jolly Ranchers first made?
Jolly Ranchers were created by a company in Colorado. Jolly Ranchers have nothing to do with a rancher or a ranch, as far as I can tell. It seems the name was chosen because it was a nod to the U.S. west and Bill and Dorothy Harmsen thought it was a friendly name. It’s interesting how word connotations change. “Jolly” always feels a little forced or fake to me. What’s the most popular Jolly Rancher flavor? The hard candy that can cut your tongue when it gets too thin has stayed popular for decades. Like other hard candy, red has stayed a favorite “flavor.” The first red Jolly Rancher might have been cinnamon. I couldn’t confirm this, but because cinnamon (Fire Stix) was one of the first flavors and later Fire Stix Jolly Ranchers were red, I assume the first ones were, too. At any rate, cherry soon was added to the flavor selections. Today, there are at least four red flavors of Jolly Ranchers: cherry, watermelon, strawberry, and fruit punch. Red is such a popular “flavor,” that you can even buy bags of only red Jolly Ranchers. How many Jolly Ranchers are sold each year? I couldn’t find out how many pieces or pounds of the hard Jolly Rancher candy is sold each year. Statista says that in 2021, Jolly Ranchers were the top-selling hard candy in the U.S. 1. Billions of dollars are spent on candy each year in the U.S.
I couldn't find an amount that was consistent across multiple sources, but over $30 billion annual candy sales seems to be the most common range. 2. The average person in the U.S. eats 8 pounds of candy in a year. Now, we don’t know what, exactly, “average” means in this case or how the pounds per person was calculated, but 8 pounds of candy in a year doesn’t seem like that much when I consider the weight of a chocolate bar. 3. M&Ms are one of the most popular candies in the U.S. Again, I couldn’t find consensus across sites as to the most popular candy, but M&Ms and Snickers consistently made the top 10. 4. Jolly Ranchers are one of the top-selling hard candies. It was hard to find a list of most popular hard candies, but Statista claims that Jolly Ranchers were the most sold hard candy in 2022. On the other hand, more than one site claims that Werther’s Hard Caramels are the best-tasting hard candy. 5. Red is the most popular “flavor” of candy that isn’t chocolate. I couldn’t actually find multiple sites that consistently told the most popular flavor of hard candy, but red kept showing up as the most popular color. I did find sites that suggested mixed flavor packs, like Skittles or Haribo Berries are the most popular. 6. Some think Circus Peanuts are the worst candy you can buy. In fact, they are so unpopular, they don’t even make it onto many “worst candy” lists. I’m a little surprised by this because they are basically stale, colored marshmallows. I haven’t eaten a Circus Peanut in decades, but I have eaten stale, colored marshmallows that continue to be sold, but under the term “marshmallow.” I wonder if the lack of popularity for Circus Peanuts has to do with a loss of the nostalgia that goes with them combined with the color and texture? Kids eat plenty of gross things. I don’t know why this one fell out of favor. Bonus: Gummies and anything else that isn’t chocolate gets classified as “hard candy.” At least, in general usage on the websites I found. I don’t know about officially in the candy-making industry or casually among average people. Selected Sources “Consumers Spent a Record $36.9B on Candy in 2021” by Megan Poinski on Food Dive; Accessed 2023, September 29. “A Definitive Ranking of the Best (and Worst) Halloween Candy of All Time” by Felicia Lalomia on Delish; Accessed 2023, September 29. “Discover the Most Popular Candy Colors in American Culture” by Robert Beadle on Candy Retailer; Accessed 2023, September 29. “How Much Candy Do Americans Eat in a Whole Year?” by Rahel Mathews on The Conversation; Accessed 2023, September 29. “A Marketer Explains Why Red and Pink Candies Are the Most Popular” by Julie R. Thomson on HuffPost; Accessed 2023, September 29. “The Most Popular Hard Candy Flavors of All Time” by K C on One on One Flavors Flavor Superstore; Accessed 2023, September 29. “Top 12 American Candy Brands” by Doug Carlin on USA by #umbers; Accessed on 2023, September 29. “The Top 27 Best-Selling Candy Products of the Year” by Robert Beadle on Candy Retailer; Accessed 2023, September 29. “Top Ten Worst Candies - Ranked” by Marisa Blankenship on Spoon University; Accessed 2023, September 29. “The Worst Halloween Candy, and the Best Too” by Ben George on Candystore.com; Accessed 2023, September 29. |
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Jill Hames is a writer, musician, biblical studies teacher, and ESL tutor who finds life too interesting to pick a niche. She has a B.A. in Music and Spanish, a Masters in Library and Information Science, is TEFL.org 168-hour certified to teach English as a second language, and is working towards a Master of Divinity. Jill is a member of Delta Omicron and the International Women's Writing Guild.
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Copyright 2025
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Copyright 2025