Turkey is the Worst and Our Other Food Takes

Regular service is coming later in the week with previews of this weeks games et al, but the Team Speed Kills staffers put together a roundtable on our Thanksgiving food takes.

Feel free to leave your takes on turkey, dressing, favorite recipes, cocktails, etc., in the comments below and have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Alex Dusza: I’ll start this off...turkey is the worst. There is no other protein I can think of that I would prefer to have less than turkey. And it’s not based on how it’s prepared; I’ve had it fried, roasted that it’s moist, smoked, etc. Almost any way it’s done is equally trash.

Brandon: Cranberry sauce is terrible. Green bean casserole and yams should be prepared separately but only be eaten after they’re mixed together. Also, sweet potatoes and yams aren’t the same thing. That’s not a take, it’s a fact.

Jess: Dressing, turkey, green beans and yeast rolls are Thanksgiving essentials. If Thanksgiving foods were college football teams, those would be the four best teams.

Robert: Turkey is kind of bad. It’s decent fried or smoked, but if you throw it in an oven for 4-5 hours like some people do, it’s bad. Also I don’t enjoy eating leftover turkey for a week after Thanksgiving. Furthermore, people who insist on eating Thanksgiving “dinner” at 2 PM are crazy. It’s called dinner!

Chris Novak: Y’all are crazy… as far as I’m concerned -- It’s ALL gonna get eaten. Turkey, duck, chicken, turducken, it doesn’t matter. Sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, it doesn’t matter. Cranberry sauce, eaten. Stuffing, eaten. No hot food takes here. I will just gobble everything up.

Photo by Scott Halleran/Getty Images

Cranberry Sauce: Jellied out of the can, whole berry out of the can, or homemade?

Alex: We do the jellied out of the can, I guess for tradition, but I make a homemade cranberry sauce with some orange zest and juice that’s really good. Either way, the cranberry sauce is honestly one of my favorite parts of the Thanksgiving meal.

Brandon: None of the above. The only thing worst than cranberry sauce is Kentucky’s record against Florida.

Jess: The only good thing about cranberry sauce is that it can be plopped out of the can ready to be eaten. It’s both terrible and weird, yet strangely efficient.

Robert: Homemade. The stuff out of the can is weird and tastes like sugar instead of the natural tartness of cranberries, plus it maintains the shape of the can and that freaks me out.

Chris Novak: See above. But I dig the homemade cranberry sauce. I’ve enjoyed both.

Dressing, Stuffing or both?

Alex: Cornbread dressing for sure. Stuffing I can take or leave.

Brandon: Stuffing is the Kevin Sumlin of Thanksgiving food. It’s consistent, but if it’s not prepared well things can go really bad in a hurry. However, if you toss in an extra ingredient like mushrooms it’s the bomb dot com.

Jess: Dressing. To steal a page from Brandon’s playbook, dressing is the Nick Saban of Thanksgiving food. It’s the GOAT.

Robert: I don’t think I actually know the difference, but I enjoy stuffing very much.

Chris Novak: I’ve never heard of dressing, honestly. #YankeeAlert

Any unique family traditions or sides?

Alex: Not really. Thanksgiving was generally a low-key holiday growing up, but has become a bigger deal as a grownup.

Brandon: Hate watching Lions game was a thing when we cared about the NFL.

Jess: Avoiding talking about the impending game between Auburn and Alabama.

Robert: Explaining why I have my laptop with me/have to watch a football basketball game/what a blogger actually does. I guess that’s unique.

Chris: I’ll typically play poker with my family after and take their money. Alas, their wallets will be full this year, as I’m not going there this year. Christmas, though…