National Holidays

Thanksgiving & Christmas: Top 200 Recipes (All Recipes Tried & True)

In TRIED & TRUE – THANKSGIVING & CHRISTMAS, all of your favorite holiday recipes are collected in one comprehensive cookbook, along with essential preparation, meal planning, and cooking tips.

Featuring:

• Homestyle Turkey —the Michigander Way,
• Hot Buttered Rum Batter,
• Rockin’ Oysters Rockefeller, and
• Santa’s Favorite Cake,

this festive TRIED & TRUE volume includes those treasured dishes that families have shared for generations.

Thanksgiving: Festive Recipes for the Holiday Table (Williams Sonoma Kitchen Library)

Whether your tastes run to the traditional or more adventurous, this Thanksgiving can be the tastiest one ever with the help of this Williams-Sonoma cookbook. From first course to last, cooks will find everything they need for a delicious holiday gathering.

Giving Thanks: Thanksgiving Recipes and History, from Pilgrims to Pumpkin Pie

Curtin and Oliver trace the history of America’s favorite day of food and football, from the earliest Puritan celebrations of thanksgiving to Lincoln’s declaration of a national holiday in 1863 to the Macy’s parade.

Alas, the book fails to shake the cold whiff of a museum brochure; the narrative section’s tone is about as energetic as an encyclopedia entry.

Happily, more than half the book is devoted to recipes, and Curtin (Plimoth Plantation’s food historian) and Oliver (publisher of Food History News) come to life as they explore the social history of food, past and present. More than 80 recipes are drawn from different eras, regions and traditions—from Indian pudding to flan, from traditional roast turkey to Cuban turkey “rellenos con moros,” with a couple of gelatin salads—”Golden Glow” and “Cranberry”—certain to evoke baby-boomer nostalgia.

Instructions are family-friendly and accessible, augmented by history and anecdote. The genuine historical engravings and illustrations are a treat, but the photographs of contemporary re-enactors of Native Americans and colonists strike a false note. Ultimately, the book works better as a souvenir of a visit to the Plimoth Plantation than it does as a stand-alone volume. (Oct. 11)

Review

“… after years of research, culinary historian Kathleen Curtin … sets the record straight about what was really eaten on the shores of Plymouth, Mass., in 1621. This engrossing new cookbook traces the history and evolution of Thanksgiving across four centuries and includes more than 80 recipes, each of which tells a story.” —Christian Science Monitor

“… a charming and informative book …” —Newsday

“Giving Thanks …is a treasure trove of holiday lore, images and recipes that will be cherished year after year when Thanksgiving rolls around … this book by Plimoth Plantation food historian Kathleen Curtin and Food History News publisher Sandra L. Oliver is not only the definitive Thanksgiving cookbook, it is a detailed and fascinating account of the origins and meaning of the quintessential American holiday.”—About.com