On Thanksgiving Day, one diner’s disgusting dish is another
diner’s delight
It’s Thanksgiving Day and you’re sitting at the table, waiting to fill your plate. You look around at the buttered rolls, mouth-watering turkey and fluffy mashed potatoes with delight. Then suddenly: a glimpse of what’s hiding behind the gravy boat.
It’s that one side dish someone always brings to dinner that you can’t stand, and while it may not be a personal favorite, there’s someone out there who loves it.
One dish that has residents of the South Valley divided is candied yams, a dish made with baked sweet potatoes or yams and topped with melted marshmallows.
“It’s a creative concept, but I just don’t really think marshmallows and potatoes go together,” said Amanda Webb of Aromas.
Gilroy resident Julie Robinson said her family doesn’t eat yams, and this year they won’t be eating another Thanksgiving staple for many green-bean casserole, made with green beans, cream of mushroom soup, pepper and topped with fried onions.
“I swore up and down that this year I wasn’t going to make it,” Robinson said. “So this year we’re having brussels sprouts casserole instead. We’re British. We love it.”
Hope Fuentez, of Hollister, doesn’t like the greenish, sometimes-mushy casserole either.
“I just can’t stand it,” she said. “I used to make it every year, and my boys would play with the beans and throw them around. I just don’t even bother anymore.”
Other interesting side dishes that made the local “unfavorites” list were cranberry sauce from the can, minced meat pie and ambrosia salad – the dish with cut-up chunks of pineapple, oranges and other fruit mixed with coconut and vanilla pudding.
Of course, what unfavorites list would be complete without the old holiday standby: fruitcake.
“I don’t know. Maybe we’re blessed out here with our fresh fruit, but some of the stuff in that cake just tastes rancid,” said Gilroy resident Shirley Marrazzo Currie.
So, what do you do when a gigantic blob of the unwanted side dish winds up on your plate? Lilia Hernandez, of Morgan Hill, said she just spreads it around on her plate.
“I eat all the stuff I like on the plate, and then whatever is left of the stuff I don’t like, I just kind of move it around so it looks like I took some bites out of it,” she said with a laugh.
Other South Valley residents have been known to feed their unwanted food to the dog or stash it in their napkins.
