How to Make Your Thanksgiving Dinner Less Boring
The New York Times
Samin Nosrat will say it: Every year, the meal is a lot of the same. Here are five ways she adds brightness, crunch, freshness and flavor.
Since my Iranian-immigrant mother spent my childhood resisting assimilation, I didn’t sit down to a proper Thanksgiving dinner until my early 20s. I like to think that I’m unburdened by all the nostalgic associations that cloud everyone else’s judgment of the meal. And so I’ll say what no one else will: It’s pretty boring on the palate.
Sure, I love a leftovers sandwich as much as the next person, and once I’d tasted some decent stuffing, I could get on board with that. But 20 years into Thanksgiving meals with different friends and families, I couldn’t help but notice what a bleak landscape of sameness the food always is: brown, sweet, soft, too rich or too dry, too salty or too bland. Besides cranberry sauce, which everyone ends up relying on for brightness, there’s nothing acidic — much less anything crunchy, fresh, vibrant or even (gasp) spicy!
As a champion of cooking in any shape or form, I love watching so many people excitedly get into the kitchen on Thanksgiving. I only wonder, for all the time and energy spent, wouldn’t you want to delight your taste buds a little more? With that in mind, here are five ways to make every bite of your Thanksgiving meal exciting and irresistible.
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