Survey Says This Is The Most Hated Thanksgiving Dish On Your Table
Thanksgiving is a time for family and friends to gather together at the table, feasting on classic holiday dishes like turkey, stuffing, pie, and mashed potatoes. With all of that variety there's bound to be at least a couple of dishes on the table that no one can agree on, but we were actually surprised at what survey respondents said was the most hated Thanksgiving dish of all.
Sure, there are things that only make it to the table because of tradition. Others are tasty in theory but hard to cook correctly (dry turkey, anyone?). Still others are just divisive, with half the family gobbling it down and the other half turning their noses up in disgust. So, what Thanksgiving foods receive the most ire every year?
The most hated Thanksgiving food
The most hated Thanksgiving dish, according to 2,000 American adults surveyed by the Harris Poll on behalf on Instacart between October 17 and 21, is canned cranberry sauce (via KRON4). This may come as a surprise if the gelatinous, can-shaped stuff is a holiday staple for your family, but 46 percent of people polled said it was "disgusting," and 29 percent said that they just didn't like it.
It's strange that so many people claim to dislike canned cranberry sauce, considering that as of 2013 more than 5,062,500 gallons of jellied cranberry sauce are sold every year during the holidays (via Smithsonian Magazine). In fact, it's so popular that only 5 percent of cranberries are sold as fresh fruit — the rest are turned into canned cranberry sauce and cranberry juice.
It wasn't until 1941 that canned cranberry sauce as we know it today became nationally available, the brain child of a man named Marcus L. Urann. But cranberries and their sauce have been enjoyed in America for hundreds of years. Cranberries were eaten by the Native Americans, and it's thought that they taught the Pilgrims and European colonizers how to prepare and eat them (via The Kitchn). Recipes for cranberry sauce sweetened with sugar appear in cookbooks as early as the 19th century.
If you think you hate cranberry sauce, maybe it's time to give it a second chance — just ditch the can and try making some from scratch, and you could end up liking it.
Other hated Thanksgiving foods
Green bean casserole was the second most-hated Thanksgiving dish, and sweet potato casserole came in third. Really, we can sort of understand the dislike for both.
Green bean casserole can't profess the same centuries-old history and allure as cranberries and cranberry sauce, which might nudge you to accept the gelatinous dish after all. No, green bean casserole was literally invented in 1955 at the Campbell's kitchen by Dorcas Reilly, a woman who was tasked with making new recipes out of Campbell's soups for their promotional recipe booklets. She combined frozen green beans with cream of mushroom soup, a popular ingredient in Midwestern casseroles at the time, topping it all with fried onions (via History). It was easy to make, sure, but it's hard to divorce the casserole from its origins as a way to used up gloppy canned condensed mushroom soup. In fact, to this day 40 percent of Campbell's cream of mushroom soup is sold to people who plan on making green bean casserole — whether or not it actually gets eaten, it turns out, is another matter.
As for sweet potato casserole, it's often topped with marshmallows, which can make for a strange flavor combination when paired with the savory dishes on the table.
Of all of the most-hated Thanksgiving dishes, there was one that really shocked us. 21 percent of people said they didn't like pumpkin pie, a surprising thing to hear about such an iconic dessert. Maybe that's why people are so obsessed with pumpkin spice-flavored things — it's a way to get the holiday flavor without having to eat any actual pumpkin.
Thanksgiving foods people actually like
There are some foods, however, that everyone can agree are welcome on the Thanksgiving table.
It might not be pumpkin, but 94 percent of survey respondents said that they eat pie on Thanksgiving.
The next most beloved item to consume at Thanksgiving isn't a food at all — it's wine. 75 percent of respondents enjoy a glass of wine on the holiday, with 47 percent opting for red and 39 percent choosing white.
But perhaps the greatest takeaway of all from the survey is that, regardless of likes or dislikes, Thanksgiving food is all about family, friends, and tradition. 68 percent of people said that they eat the Thanksgiving foods they don't like anyway, simply because it's tradition. Remember that the next time your Aunt Bertie offers you the dish filled with her congealed green bean casserole.