Thanksgiving is a time for family and friends to join together and vocalize their gratitude for things that often get taken for granted. For some individuals, that appreciation looks like a healthy dose of home cooked nostalgia prompted by the holiday season.
This rings true for those hours away from their home, but also for those who have found that familiar flavor within the Oxford community throughout their entire lives.
Sara Ellis Dean is a sophomore biology major from Water Valley, Miss., who transferred to Ole Miss at the beginning of the fall semester. Growing up in Oxford’s neighboring town, Dean became accustomed to a fair summary of what Oxford’s backyard Thanksgiving cuisine consisted of — and she is certain of her answers.
“Thanksgiving has to have dressing,” Dean said. “It is a necessity.”
She expanded on her holiday food essentials by sharing that an Oxford-adjacent Thanksgiving includes time with extended family competitively enjoying the Egg Bowl.
“Family is my number one favorite thing about Thanksgiving because it’s one of the few times I get to see my distant family throughout the year,” Dean said. “But also the Egg Bowl is every Thanksgiving, and I always know that’s something I can look forward to.”
Contrary to her fellow southerner, sophomore accounting major and Nashville native Katherine Duke said that dressing is a stop she will not make around the table. Duke did, however, confess her love for her Grandma’s marshmallow-topped sweet potato casserole.
“I have memories of running around the house and being able to smell it as she’s making it and getting excited because I know it’s coming,” Duke said.
Duke said that both sides of her family offer different Thanksgiving food traditions, as they come from different sections of the country. None of those, however, are similar to what sophomore accounting major Maddie Arbuckle has experienced on the Pacific Coast.
Arbuckle has spent her last two years calling Seattle, Wash., her hometown, but prior to that, she spent many years in Honolulu.
“(Hawaii’s Thanksgiving) is heavily Asian influenced — we have a ton of Asian dishes,” Arbuckle said.
As for her favorite Hawaiian holiday dish, Arbuckle shared that it must be the Filipino spring rolls known as lumpia, a dish that a family friend makes and that has continued to stick with her throughout the years. Arbuckle also argues that the traditional cranberry sauce from her newfound home state of Washington is the best original dish of the season.
Much farther east in the United States, Holliston, Mass., is the hometown of junior biology major Aliya Marino.
Marino’s first and most original holiday take is that stuffing is the best Thanksgiving food choice. Marino explained that the sharpest difference between the south’s dressing and northern stuffing is that stuffing is literally stuffed inside of the turkey. Dean and Duke explained that dressing is more of a pan and side dish than a factor in the main entree.
The New England representative revealed that the dish is special not just for its food content but also for the story of how the stuffing was formed in her household.
“When I was younger, my dad would have his whole station set out and hand make everything. He’s always teaching me how to make food: He’s taught me how to make pasta, how to cook a sausage and what you use to cook it, and how to cook a turkey and all that,” Marino said. “So, I really just like the holidays because it’s a big bonding experience.”
Freshman biomedical engineering major Emma Gottman is all too familiar with a family-oriented Thanksgiving. The Quincy, Ill. native is firm in her love for the gratitude-filled holiday because it allows a chance to relive her Great Grandma’s presence through the Thanksgiving food she cemented as a classic in her family.
“My favorite Thanksgiving food is my Great Grandma’s homemade egg noodles. She passed away a few years ago, but we still make them every year,” Gottman said. “It’s something I learned to do from my Great Grandma, my Grandma and my Dad, so it’s just a really fun tradition to eat egg noodles like we used to with Great Grandma. It’s a great way to remember her.”
Though egg noodles probably are not found on the menu at every household around this country, the dish of family togetherness and perfect nostalgia is prepared neatly in a cleverly placed bowl at all of these houses around the Thanksgiving season.
Whether in Hawaii, Massachusetts or Oxford’s backyard, the one thing all of these homes have in common is food bringing their families together.
