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In the past, whenever I planned my Thanksgiving menu, I always happily included at least one too many entrée selections, three too many side dishes and at least two too many deserts, which typically remained mostly uneaten due to feelings of being (like the turkey) too stuffed to consume even one more bite.
When it came to Thanksgiving I knowingly always cooked too much food for two primary reasons: so that Thanksgiving looked, felt and tasted like a true feast and so that my family could take home leftovers. However, over the years, I have noticed that my family members (myself included) are eating less during dinner and seem less inclined to want to take home massive amounts of leftovers. I might not know why exactly, this is happening within my family, but I am willing to offer up my theories…
The first theory I have as to why we are (seemingly) eating less food is because we are overwhelmed with all the choices. And so… we try a little of this and a little of that until we run out of room on our plates. Then we stop adding to our plates and end up only eating a little of this and a little of that until we become too full to want to eat anymore. In addition, I recognize that I, and my family, are growing (a bit) older. Due to this additional experience, we are much more aware of how feeling too full can make us feel icky for not only the rest of the day/night, but also for the next day. And so, we stop eating earlier so that we can actually enjoy playing a game or watching a movie without feeling like we just want to go to bed and wake up when our stomach is deflated. Likewise, I have a theory about why my family might be (seemingly) taking home fewer leftovers: They are overwhelmed with how much is actually left over! Last year I am pretty sure that I sent some of my family members home with about 75 percent of the dish they prepared as well as a smattering of whatever else they wanted. Perhaps they did take a lot home but in having prepared way too much food for our feast, it maybe just seemed like nobody took a lot of food home.
So … this year, rather than planning another massive Thanksgiving feast, I decided to create a menu which is limited to only our tried-and-true favorite traditional dishes (desserts included). Rather than offering two kinds of cranberry sauce, there will be only one. There will be a turkey and a small ham. There will be two vegetables and only mashed potatoes as well as our traditional stuffing. Of course, there will still be olives and applesauce and gravy which is piping hot and cornbread and dinner rolls and laughs and happy stories to share... But this year, there will ALSO be plenty of room on the table for everything to be passed around. And with a smaller menu, there will also be less preparation and cleanup work, and, above all.. less food that, in the end, will be wasted.
Wisdom! Wisdom!
Kathy Naumann, possessor of NATURALLY curly hair and the understanding that you can’t control everything!
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