The Tradition of Thanksgiving Desserts

I'd wager that like most families who celebrate Thanksgiving each year, our menu rarely changes.

Turkey - check. Multiple kinds of potatoes - check. Enough gravy to cover as much or as little of your plate as you desire - check. Generally speaking, our meal is really just a big, honkin' roast turkey, and a whole ton of side dishes. Seriously - there's only six of us. I don't know why we need 10+ dishes to choose from, but heck, the founding fathers sure would be proud...right?

That being said however, a side dish here or there can be reimagined every now and then. For instance, this year one of my brothers scalloped the sweet potatoes and layered them with fresh thyme and pecans, instead of just mashing them like we’ve always done. However, as willy-nilly as we might dare to get with those sides, one thing never...NEVER changes. Dessert. Sure we might add to the dessert options (which also hardly ever happens), but we sure as hell don't remove the ever-nominated king and queen pies of Thanksgiving: pumpkin, and pecan. Get out of here with your apple pie - this isn't the 4th of July!

You see, I have a special kinship with pumpkin pie. For nearly all of my childhood, let's say from ages 4-14, I was allergic to nuts. Period. *Or so I was told. Surprise! My allergist later told me he was wrong and that it was just a peanut allergy. Oh thank you, so I avoided EVERYTHING delicious for years. You bet your bottom as soon as I found out I could eat nuts again I was inhaling spoonfuls of chunky peanut butter just to make up for all my lost time.

But I digress.

So during that culinary drought of my life, I couldn't eat the pecan pie my family always raved about. So alas, pumpkin and I had our own party in the corner. But as the years have gone by and the pumpkin pie has been put on the chopping block, we can never seem to find another choice that quite captures those commercialized fall flavors we've all come to anticipate on Thanksgiving.

Now let's talk about this pecan pie.

I lie to you not - I have yet to eat a pecan pie nearly as good as the one we make every year. And I'm sorry, but that is likely the one recipe I will not disclose. My mother would kill me. We've made blood pacts in our family not to give away the carrot cake recipe, and I have the feeling this pecan pie edges into the same priority level. What can I say? We're southern.

My REAL QUESTION though (which I'm running as a poll on Instagram today @thetickledkitchen) is whether you're team pecans-on-top, or team pecans-inside. Personally I think pecans inside ruin that amazing caramel gooeyness that you get when you bite into a piece of pecan pie with the nuts on top. Also you know that time-consuming design work elevates the experience.

Don't lie to yourself.

As you eventually seek relief on the couch while your body retaliates for the amount of food you just consumed (and let's be honest, will consume again later) all that pie and gravy sloshing around inside will, if just for a second, make you remember how beautiful it is to live in this country. I hope your Thanksgiving is a beautiful one, and that you can share it with all of your loved ones, both in person, and in memory.

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