Surrounded by turkey’s fragrant aroma and comfortable chatter permeating the room, family members, friends, and loved ones gather around the dinner table for a lively Thanksgiving experience—with no school or other stressors in sight. Different families all have their own traditions, yet we can all agree on one staple for the holidays: food. This week, The Phillipian wanted to honor those festivities—we interviewed students on what dishes their communities cooked to celebrate Thanksgiving. Make sure to check out their recipes for next year!
Emily Turnbull ’24:
“[For] our most perennial dish, we make cornbread stuffing and cranberry-apple pie…. So, we’ll make the cornbread, and we put in bacon, onions, celery, a bunch of dried fruit [and] dried apricots and cranberries, and then [my grandma] bakes it the next day. Our big traditions are making food together. I think the cornbread has to have dried apricots, those are so good. And the cranberry-apple ribbon pie has a lot of ginger in it. Those are probably the most special ingredients. ”
Jacob Kaiser ’24:
“Every year, we make beef stew around Thanksgiving. It’s a nice, comforting food…[and] a really warm and filling meal… It’s just been a tradition for us for so long, and I can very clearly remember a couple years ago, my grandma made it, and it’s been around in the family since then…. My favorite part [is] chopping up the pancetta. After I chop the pancetta, I fry it, or cook it really lightly and then add it to the stew later. It adds a nice, rich flavor.”
Sarah Bae ’26:
“I bake [chocolate chip] cookies for my family… I don’t get to bake often because I am at boarding school now…. The cookies are always a hit… I think food is a big part of my family, and we all like to eat… It’s nice because we’ll all usually watch a movie and then have cookies with it… Everyone likes the cookies, so they get appreciated.”
Ginny Marshall ’25:
“We have a special recipe for a cherry-cranberry pie… It is a tradition that has been passed down in my family for as long as me, my mom, and my grandmother can remember. We’ve been making it since the time that we have been little children. It’s really good, and the flavors are really vibrant and colorful…. The special thing about the pie is that it is really easy to make.”
Carly Hopkins ’24:
“We made an apple crisp for dessert after the turkey…. We’ve had this recipe in my family for years, and it’s very heartwarming and easy to make. So it was the first dessert I ever learned to bake… [I put] lots of cinnamon and nutmeg, I put way more than the recipe requires, I just dump a lot in there, and then I always like to top it off with vanilla ice cream… I think apples are a very fall flavor, so it contributes to the autumn aesthetic of Thanksgiving.”
Margot Furman ’25:
“Me and my friends eat [minestrone soup] at my friend’s house on Sunday night for dinner, and it’s really nice and fun, and festive and homey…. You have to make sure to add pasta at the end to make sure that the soup doesn’t get too heavy as you are making it. It tastes really nice and fresh afterward… There were a lot of different vegetables in it, which gave it a really nice, rich flavor.”
Nico von Eckartsberg ’23:
“I made this a few times in the past, but I didn’t make it this year. It is a caramel-rose-apple pie…. I think it looks really cool. It tastes much like another apple pie or apple tart that you might make, but I think it’s really fun when it comes out and it looks like a rose… You have to soak the apples in a cinnamon, nutmeg mixture, so they get a lot of that flavor in them… I would maybe say the novelty is what makes it special.”
