Favorite Thanksgiving Food

Thanksgiving is a holiday that is beloved by many people, especially the food! A quick visit to some classrooms show that Cypress’ favorite Thanksgiving food is mashed potatoes, with turkey following close behind. Pumpkin pie and sandwiches trail in third and fourth place in popularity. Pecan pie places last with one vote. Ham, baked sweet potatoes, cheesecake, cranberries, cornbread, and apple pie are the medium ground, while salads, casseroles, yams, and pecan pie are least popular. There are three questions in the survey, and the second question is what food you’re the most thankful for. The mashed potatoes are the most popular yet again in this segment. Other included foods are corn, ham, pozole, salad, bread rolls, lugaw, rice, and turkey. The third and final segment is food recommendations from their respective culture. Fried chicken, Babinka, Halo Halo, Kare Kare, Spring rolls, Egg rolls, Lettuce rolls, Sarmale, Tamales, Pozole, Mandu, Ramen noodles, and Tacos are all on the list of recommended foods, and some have multiple variations. 

Fried chicken is just as the name sounds, and it originates from Scotland and the U.S.! Bibingka is a Filipino cake made of rice, butter, eggs, sugar, coconut milk, and has cheese, salted duck egg, and grated coconut. Halo Halo, which is also of Filipino origin, is made of shaved ice evaporated milk, or coconut milk, ube jam (ube halaya), sweetened kidney or garbanzo beans, coconut strips, sago, gulaman (agar), pinipig, boiled taro or soft yams in cubes, flan, slices or portions of fruit preserves and other root crop preserves. The dessert is topped with a scoop of ube. Kare Kare is a soup with peanut sauce. It’s a popular Filipino dish that is served on special occasions. There are instances wherein both ox tripe and tail are used. The vegetable components of the dish are bok choy, string beans, eggplant, tomato, and okra (abelmoschus esculentos). Spring rolls are made of cooked chicken or shrimp, chopped veggies, herbs, noodles, and rice paper wrappers. Chop all of your vegetables into long, thin slices. You can shred the carrot, but you can cut it julienne if you’d like. Egg rolls are crispy eggs filled with seasoned pork, cabbage, and carrots. It can be served with egg roll sauce, or soy sauce. Lettuce rolls are fresh chopped vegetables with a stir-fry sauce, with ground chicken (or turkey), served in a cold and crisp lettuce leaf. Romanian Cabbage Rolls (Sarmale) are made with sour cabbage stuffed with pork, a little bit of bacon, and beef. Tamales are Hispanic, with shreds of spicy red chile pork wrapped in a soft masa dough. The tamales are generally different flavors, and not always spicy. Tamales are a dish for the holidays that are wrapped in paper, so please unwrap it before eating! Pozole is Mexican chicken noodle soup that has hominy. There are different variations of pozole, with red, green, and white. Pozole is generally eaten with tortillas or tostadas.  Mandu is a Korean dumpling, made of one pound pork belly (or pork shoulder); ground, 80 regular size mandu skins (or make homemade mandu skins), one teaspoon peeled ginger; minced, four garlic cloves; minced, one teaspoon of ground black pepper, one tablespoon of soy sauce, one pound of zucchini (or any tender green squash); cut into matchsticks, one  tablespoon of toasted sesame oil, one teaspoon of kosher salt, one medium sized onion (about 5 ounces); chopped, two ounces of dangmyeon (sweet potato starch noodles), one teaspoon of cooking oil, 12 to 14 ounces of mung bean sprouts, one pound of medium or firm tofu, and four ounces of buchu (Asian chives); chopped. Ramen noodles are made of 99g King Arthur bread flour, 1g vital wheat gluten, 1g kosher salt, 1.5g baked baking soda, and 40g water. Tacos are another Hispanic food, made of a tortilla, a choice of beef, chicken, asada, or sometimes even chorizo, with tomatoes, avocado, onion, cilantro, lime, pico de gallo and sometimes rice!