Matthew Burnette, Staff Writer

With Thanksgiving a mere week away, there’s been a topic that’s been running through my mind like a determined turkey trying to survive another holiday season: the food.

Now granted, food is a subject that is often at the forefront of my thought processes for the rest of the year as well. How to make it, when to eat it, what could make it better, what was the process like to perfect the recipe are just a sample of the questions that I often ask myself during meals.

I don’t know that I would consider myself a “foodie” by any means. I’m far too picky an eater to ever venture too far from the culinary conventions that I’ve accustomed myself to.

Often, I’ll find myself watching a show on the Food Network, and as the chef prepares a dish, I’ll comment to whoever I may be watching with “Wow, that’s kind of neat” and their response is almost inevitably “Yeah, but you would never eat that.”

That’s undoubtedly why I enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday so much. Aside from being the most popular food celebration, it’s also a time that’s deeply tied to tradition, which for a finicky person like me means that I can breathe a sigh of relief.

For one day, and possibly a couple after, I know what I’m getting on my plate.

During an early lunch with my paternal side of the family, we enjoy dishes indicative of a more southern upbringing: a big aluminum pan of faintly green dressing that’s often paired with a heaping ladle full of giblet gravy, green beans with a vinegary twang, a big pot of Velveeta shells and cheese, pigs in a blanket and deviled eggs.

Then we make a trip over to the maternal side for an early dinner that has more of a northern flair with a menu consisting of mashed rutabaga, pickled purple cabbage, a serving bowl full of Le Sueur Very Young Small Sweet Peas, mashed potatoes and gravy and sweet potato casserole that I can’t eat because of a pineapple allergy.

And of course, turkey and ham at both places.

For the entirety of my life, the menu has stayed the same at both households. Occasionally someone will bring a different side to add or a new dessert recipe, but the staples remain unchanged.

There have been times in my life where someone, or even on occasion I, will make a comment along the lines of “Hey maybe we should try this next year,” but the sentimentality sets in and the traditions continue.

Those traditions are often the strongest connections we have to those who have passed on. The process of formulating a shopping list in preparation for Thanksgiving always includes the comment “Well, we have to have this because this person always liked having it on Thanksgiving,” despite that person no longer being around to eat it.

It’s almost like a way of having those loved ones back at the table for a family meal.

While the Thanksgiving dinner is undoubtedly the icon of the holiday and the scene you most commonly see in your favorite television shows and movies, if I’m being honest with myself, it’s not my favorite meal of the day.

I can appreciate the dinner, but for me it’s the breakfast.

Where the dinner can often be chaotic with a lot of conversation going on and the food passing around so quickly that you can barely keep up with what’s in front of you, the breakfast tends to be more subdued and simpler.

We only feature two items on our breakfast menu for Thanksgiving: sausage balls and fried dough.

Sausage balls are more commonly known from household to household, and our recipe doesn’t stray too far from everyone else’s, so I won’t go too far into detail on those. Plus, the fried dough always seems to be the one to get a confused look when I’m telling someone about my favorite Thanksgiving delicacies.

You may be wondering to yourself “How can something called ‘Fried Dough’ be considered a delicacy?” I will gladly explain.

The concept itself is very simple. It’s a bread dough that’s deep fried in oil. I’ve heard people try to compare it to a doughnut, but I push back on that slightly. Fried dough is more savory than what a doughnut is. It may have the same cooking process, but the result is entirely different.

Hot from the pot of oil with a couple of pads of butter, there are very few things that compare to it for me. The hot and crispy exterior and the soft and pillowy interior. My mouth is currently watering just thinking about it.

I consider it a delicacy, not for the extravagance of it. For less than $15 you can have all the ingredients and potentially feed a fleet of saviors. The delicacy factor comes in the rareness.

It’s a dish that is only available on Thanksgiving. Sure, any of us could easily go and grab the items needed and make it any day of the week, but we wouldn’t dare. It would make it less special.

Fried dough is a long-standing hallmark of our family.

A great-great uncle for a time had a food truck where he would travel around to different events and sell fried dough, though his was more in the style of an elephant ear, which is much wider, flatter and less pillowy.

It’s the dish that most makes me feel connected to those who came before me.

I hope everyone has that one thing that they look forward to during the holidays, whether it be during dinner or another meal.

Food traditions are often the most valuable, not only because they fill our stomachs, but because they fill our hearts, and there’s nothing better than that.

Not even fried dough.