Least favorite Thanksgiving foods: ‘Turkey is just for display,’ Gee Scott says

Now that Thanksgiving has arrived this year, a survey from Tastes Better With Scratch revealed the seven most reviled Thanksgiving foods typically served.

Green bean casserole led the way with the most votes (31.4%) for America’s least favorite dish on Turkey Day, followed by sweet potato casserole (23.1%), roasted vegetables (16.4%), cranberry sauce (15.5%), stuffing (6.2%), homemade rolls (4.2%) and mashed potatoes and gravy (3.3%).

Another poll conducted by SurveyMonkey on behalf of The Vacationer showed cranberry sauce (31.5%), sweet potatoes (29.2%), green bean casserole (28%), turkey (27.7%) and stuffing (26.8%) were the top five most “disliked” Thanksgiving dishes. (This survey allowed to respondents to choose multiple dishes they disliked.)

But, according to Gee Scott, co-host of The Gee and Ursula Show, the worst is the holiday’s most standard part of the meal.

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“I have been saying it for years, turkey is just display,” Gee said in 2022. “You’re better off getting a fake turkey and putting it on your table just to post it for the gram. Nobody really cares about turkey unless it’s the next day for a turkey sandwich.”

In 2019, The Daring Kitchen determined — through a rigorous process of tracking geotagged Twitter data comprised of phrases and hashtags about hating specific Thanksgiving Day dishes — that in the state of Washington, residents hate cranberries and cranberry sauce above all. But the same study found the second-least favorite food in Washington is turkey.

“If I come to your house and you’re sitting down and say, ‘Gee, I love turkey.’ And especially if you’re eating just white meat, do you know the trust issues that I have with you if you sit down and ‘I’m just going to have some white meat, that part of the turkey, and then we’re going to have some green bean casserole with some mashed potatoes with gravy and green beans?'” Gee said.

In 2022, more than 210 million turkeys were raised on some 2,500 farms across the U.S., according to the National Turkey Federation. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated Americans consume more than 46 million turkeys on Thanksgiving Day each year.

“(I’ve) got to stop you,” said Andrew “Chef” Lanier, the producer for The Gee and Ursula Show, during the 2022 segment. “There are two things that you cannot have without the turkey. One, when you walk into the house, it does not smell like Thanksgiving unless you have a turkey in the oven. Two, the best thing about the turkey is not the meat, it is the gravy and you cannot have gravy without a roasted turkey. Turkey and gravy make the meal, it is by far the best thing about Thanksgiving. It ties the whole room together. It’s like the rug in ‘The Big Lebowski.'”

“If you cook the bird correctly, Gee,” countered Ursula Reutin, co-host of The Gee and Ursula Show, during the 2022 discussion. “The white meat is juicy and succulent and flavorful. I’m a dark meat person, but I’m not going to snub my nose at white meat unless you don’t know how to cook.”

But Gee wasn’t raining on the Thanksgiving parade entirely, as he revealed the single greatest bite of the meal every time.

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“The best bite you have on Thanksgiving is a bite with macaroni and cheese, sweet potato and cornbread stuffing all at the same time,” Gee said.

Both Gee and Ursula later revealed in last year’s segment that stuffing is their favorite part of the meal.

For those wanting a traditional Thanksgiving turkey, the bird costs $27.35 for a 16-pound bird, according to America’s Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF). At $1.71 a pound, turkeys are costing an average of 5.6% less than this time last year.

Contributing: Steve Coogan, MyNorthwest

Listen to Gee Scott and Ursula Reutin weekday mornings from 9 a.m.-noon on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.