What are the absolute worst holiday foods?

Fruitcake. No contest.

Pumpkin pie.

Jell-o mold. Ugh. Thankfully half the time my mother forgot to take it out of the basement fridge where it had been tucked away the day before Thanksgiving, so we didn’t have to eat it.

This might be the most difficult poll I have ever encountered in my decades on Datalounge. Giblets are disgusting, but so are yams, pumpkin pie, mincemeat, and fruitcake. I choose giblets in the end, but it was a tough call.

I love stuffing, and I like ham, and don't mind the cloves and pineapple, and a Jello mold just takes up space on the table. Green bean casserole I am neutral on, I don't hate it, but it isn't a big draw for me at Thanksgiving or Christmas..

Not a fan of the creamed corn goop that is often served.

Fruitcake is for 400 year olds!

Turkey.

Green bean casserole, yams, and fruitcake are destructive to humanity.

Norman Lloyd and I have been gifting the same fruitcake to each other for 85 years. Who am I going to give it to this year....Betty White?? She won’t appreciate it.

Mother lovingly made it with currants Father squirreled away from his Confederate soldier rations.

Mincemeat isn't bad, if you make your own. I make Nigella's cranberry mincemeat and it is divine.

Fruitcake can, like wise, be delicious if you make it yourself. Collin Street Bakery, out of Texas, makes the only commercial fruitcake I've ever liked.

Mashed rutebaga. Yuck.

r6 {{{ raises hand }}} I love the stuff. I'll always sample anyone's fruitcake, if only to see how it stacks up against mine. They are always found wanting in some regard, he said humbly. 🤭

Stuffing is the best, sometimes it's the tastiest item on the table. Slices of stuffing, fried and covered with turkey and gravy is a great way to use holiday leftovers.

My mom used to make a Jell-O mold with orange gelatin, sour cream and canned mandarin oranges. Too much on the sweet side for me, but it was enjoyed by many.

I don't see anything wrong with pumpkin pie, yams/sweet potatoes, stuffing, or even the green bean casserole with fried onions on top. It's kind of trashy, but it can be tasty. The rest I could take or leave. Even fruitcake, like other posters have mentioned. If it's homemade with good ingredients, it can be delicious.

What do carbophobes eat at Thanksgiving and Christmas?

Love the fruitcak!

Ambrosia Salald.

I LOOOOVVVEEE ambrosia salad! Green bean casserole is pretty good too. But I hate fruitcake and yams.

Shtuffing

Personally I enjoy the canned cranberries, complete with the can indentations!

R17, how do you prepare your green been casserole? I must know the truth. A can of mushroom soup? Fried onions?

R20 I'm not R17 but I make a Béchamel type sauce. Though I do use French's onions.

r20 I add red pepper which makes it spicy. I use a can of cream of mushroom and I also add canned mushrooms.

That sounds good, R22

I have tasted what is supposed to be “the best” and “delicious” homemade fruitcake and it was still horrible. I also don’t care for carrot cake so it must just be a personal thing but I am never trying fruitcake again for the remainder of my life.

Don't forget the obligatory "relish tray," which no one actually touches but is presented for "health" and "color". Canned black olives are the worst.

Green bean casserole, disgusting

I like many of the hated holiday dishes as long as they're prepared well. For instance, green bean casserole is disgusting when made with mushy caned beans, but I enjoy it when the beans are fresh (or even frozen). I like giblet gravy, oyster stuffing, ambrosia, candied yams and even some fruitcake (most are terrible, however). I agree with R10 about the Collin Street Bakery fruitcake.

For me, the worst is when the turkey is overcooked and/or carved by someone who doesn't know what they're doing. My partner's father often insists on carving the turkey and he always fucks it up. He may have been a heart surgeon, but he sure can't operate on a bird.

Oops, "canned" beans. Although caned beans don't sound good, eithet.

Ok, I give up. EITHER!

Candy corn at Halloween and Peeps, those yellow marshmallow filled little chicks at Easter. Disgusting, the both of them. I love most of the things on OP's list if well prepared, but then again I come from a white trash family.

This thread makes my stomach hurt, it's all disgusting. I had one relative who made the mincemeat pie for Christmas -- thankfully, she died and took her mincemeat recipe with her. Never again!

British Christmas pudding is basically brandy-soaked fruitcake but I thought I'm mention it here anyway. It's so gross.

All you fruitcake haters have never had Trini Black Cake.

[quote]All you fruitcake haters have never had Trini Black Cake.

And with luck, we never will (this applies to your brussels sprouts recipe, your pumpkin pie recipe, et al).

R33, what? Trini black cake is a traditional holiday recipe from Trinidad. It's not my recipe. And I don't have a brussels sprouts recipe or a pumpkin pie recipe. I have no idea what you're on about.

The Nov.-Dec. issue of Cook's Illustrated has a complicated copycat recipe to make your own jellied cranberry sauce -- even using an empty can to make it look like that horrible stuff you get in the store.

All of the above and more. I hate Thanksgiving meals and traditional American Xmas meals are barely better.

The only traditional dish I like is a pecan pie, and that only if I make it (so that it's rich and nutty,not that gelatinous, snotty goo.)

Fruitcake can be OK if it's fresh and moist. Unfortunately it's nearly always old, stale and dry.

[quote]Unfortunately it's nearly always old, stale and dry.

Just like most of the fruitcakes who post here.

My alcoholic grandma used to make potato salad for any and all celebratory family meals. Her version had added green food coloring and whole dill pickle spears. As if all that isn’t bad enough…one Christmas she over cooked the potatoes. We were served cold, fluorescent green mashed potatoes, with whole dill pickle spears. Yum. Yum.

My sisters' awful burnt to hell roasted chicken thighs. She doesn't like the traditional roast turkey and freaks out if we even consider making one let alone putting it on the table. Nevermind my dad, brother, mother (RIP), and I all like it. Because SHE doesn't like it, none of us are "allowed" to enjoy it ourselves. She flips out if it's even in the oven. She's an insufferable control freak when it comes to holiday gatherings, and truth be told, she can't cook for shit.

Green bean casserole and jello molds are abominations and holdovers from the processed food '50's-70's.

I don't like giblets, but if they are in the gravy and smooth and I don't know about them, I'm probably okay with that because i concede they give a depth of flavor, just not TOO much of them.

I won't touch fruitcake again with a 10 foot pole...it only took one tasting when I was young to nix that.

I love sweet potatoes and yams, but NOT with those ghastly marshmallows on top. Again, another 50's-60's style food.

I checked out a mincemeat recipe because I never really knew what went into them, and you can choose not to use meat in it and just add more golden raisins/dried fruit. In that case, it sounds good to me. I've never tried one, but if they left out the beef, I'd be completely willing to give it a shot.

Definitely difficult to pick a top one on that list though.

I guess this is food:

My grandmother was a fabulous award winning baker and even her fruitcake sucked. My mom makes a version of Ambrosia that she calls “candy salad” and it is so good in a trashy over the top way. I haven’t eaten it in years though.

I only use giblets to make the stock for the graxy, along with the neck and some turkey bones. They all get discarded.

Yams or sweet potatoes with the melted marshmallows on top is too fucking gross to abide. My estimation of people goes down if this is something they love/make/eat. Same for the green bean casserole, which I voted for since marshmallow yams was not a choice..

R41 Almost any mincemeat you will encounter, today, doesn't have meat in it.

R45 Are sweet potatoes with pecans and cinnamon sugar on top acceptable.

R40 She is a horrible hos, and I would not spend another holiday with her.

My aunt always brought tomato aspic and pickled shrimp. It's a form of torture commonly used in the South.

R40 Sorry I meant to say host, but she sounds like she probably a ho as well.

Is green bean casserole one of those Midwestern things?

Cranberry sauce is the easiest thing to make. No excuse for that canned shit.

I make mine with grand marnier. Stuffing is delish too. Ham good but not that cloved, pineapple glazed crap.

R49 I don’t think so. We grew up with it here in CA because the recipe was on the French onion can. I think people thought it was fancy because of those onions, when nothing could be further from the truth.

I’ve heard of squash casserole which seems to be a buttery cheesy bake with breadcrumbs topper. That’s Southern and it sounds better.

I also make my own cranberry sauce. it's easy to make and satisfying to watch the cranberries POP while they are cooking. i don't make it smooth, i keep some semblance of the original berries in there. I always add in raspberries or blackberries as well...and people absolutely love it and request it if I'm coming to their Thanksgiving dinner.

R52: You may be the first poster to describe something that I feel certain I would enjoy. Usually when someone says something to the effect of, "oh, but you haven't tried mine!" it's a clue to run in the opposite direction; but it does sound delicious and I'm sure your guest are right.