Gluttonous Opinion: A Ranking of Food-Holidays
Think of a holiday. It can be your favorite holiday, one coming up, or one you recently celebrated. Close your eyes and picture all the sights, sounds, and smells you associate with that holiday. You’re picturing some foods, aren’t you?
Food is central to every celebration. That’s because what we eat is who we are. During holidays we are especially cognizant that what’s on the table is a reflection of not just the season, but our values.
It’s also just deliciously petty to be honest about the holidays that suck, gastronomically speaking. I’ve listed most of the major U.S. holidays, worst to best, on a scale of 0 to 5 Hungry Bibs. Some of my assessments are based on regional dishes, some are based on personal dynamics within my friends and family, but all of them are unimpeachable. Damn, I want some peaches.
This list only includes holidays that I’ve personally celebrated or attended. If there’s one you think should be included please contact me with your Hungry Bib rating and a brief explanation behind it, and I may add it to this post!
Now, let’s begin with the most overrated of them all…
Thanksgiving
Rating: 1/2 Hungry Bib
No, I didn’t accidentally import this list backwards. I hate Thanksgiving and its nasty food! There are many people who would have ranked this holiday at the top. Those people are unhinged. Thanksgiving food, at least in my family, is the stuff of mid-century nightmares: mushy casseroles, canned vegetables, and aspik. If you don’t know what aspik is, then consider yourself lucky.
Even if you had family members who weren’t diabolical in the kitchen, ask yourself when the last time was that you had something truly memorable to eat at Thanksgiving. The turkey is always dry, the green bean casserole is always regrettable, the mashed potatoes are consistently under-seasoned, and someone always fucks up an otherwise perfectly decent side dish by adding marshmallows.
My ideal thanksgiving would consist of running a morning 5K Turkey Trot, then gorging myself at the always-open Waffle House before spending the afternoon writing gratitude emails to people who have supported me that year. Somehow I always find myself drunk and grumpy with a plate full mushy starch as I examine the greens for traces of bacon. Thanksgiving food is the worst and I won’t pretend otherwise.
New Year’s Eve
Rating: 1 Hungry Bib
This is more of a drinking holiday - although some people eat greens and black eyed peas for luck and wealth. I love some bubbly, but that hangover on January 1st is killer.
This holiday ranks so low because I typically spend most of the night thinking about how hungry I am. By the ball is ready to drop I’m usually ready to kill someone for a taco. If you want to get a good base before going out, then the traditional stewed vegetables are not going to cut it.
Valentin’e Day
Rating: 1.5 Hungry Bibs
Chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate. When Valentine’s Day is good, it’s really good. Think of decadent chocolate soufflés, chocolate-dipped strawberries, and a romantic meal at a French cafe.
But when Valentine’s Day is bad, and you’re stuck at work nibbling on stale candy hearts that the receptionist brought with only a sad drugstore box of candy to look forward to at home, then this holiday is something that was lab-concocted just to make you miserable.
Father’s Day
Rating: 2 Hungry Bibs
Solid grilling holiday. But at this point in the year, you’re grilling at home with your family almost every weekend, so Father’s Day food isn’t exactly that special. I think my dad always preferred spending Father’s Day with some peace and quiet away from home, preferably at a dingy old-man bar, so I’ve never really associated specific foods with this holiday.
Maybe I should start celebrating my fiancé for being a great Cat Dad. He would probably just want to go to his favorite restaurant in town, which no matter where we are, is Outback Steakhouse.
Easter
Rating: 2 Hungry Bibs
Two words: Church food. If you didn’t grow up in the south, then you might not know about church food and the sulfuric smell of deviled eggs, stale fried chicken, potato salad swimming in mayonnaise, and a greasy spiraled country ham. A spread of church food will leave you desperate for a fresh vegetable.
This holiday gets points for featuring my favorite candy of all time: the Cadbury Creme Egg. Holy resurrected Jesus, has there ever been a better treat? After a nice crunch into the milk chocolate shell, your mouth is blanketed by a velvety wave of sweet cream. Cadbury even goes to the trouble of hiding a yellow center inside the white cream to create the appearance of an egg. They somehow do that, and they do it for us.
Labor Day
Rating: 2.5 Hungry Bibs
Another grilling holiday. Unfortunately, you’re sort of over summer at this point. Labor Day is thrown together with leftover buns from previous cookouts and forgotten store-brand popsicles that had been pushed to the back of the freezer to make way for better desserts. We don’t usually notice the food is mediocre because everything tastes better when you don’t have to be at work.
By September, you’ve survived at least one sunburn and dozens of mosquito bites. It may be a summer celebration, but the conversation at least will have already turned to plans for autumn.
Christmas
Rating: 3 Hungry Bibs
The disappointing thing about Christmas is that you eat the same dinner as Thanksgiving. Having to suffer through another buffet of casseroles, just weeks after the dreaded third Thursday in November, should make this holiday insufferable.
Christmas gets credibility for all its delightful holiday sweets. Christmas desserts are hands-down the best desserts. This holiday could take the top dessert spot just based on the seasonal items at Trader Joe’s alone. Some of my favorites include:
Bear Tea. It’s technically a mint and chocolate infused black tea, but it had a brown bear in a cozy scarf on the box, so I call it “Bear Tea”
Milk chocolate minty marshmallows
Egg Nog ice cream
Those adorable Swiss chalet gingerbread house kits that only cost $7
Cocoa peppermint almond creamer (bonus points for adding this to Trader Joe’s incredible “Wintry Mix” ground coffee).
Christmas is also the season of peppermint hot chocolate, mulled wine, and the combination of chocolate and orange, which should really be a year-round thing, but is somehow associated only with Christmas. The pairing is best executed in the form of those foil-wrapped chocolate oranges that break into little detailed slices when smacked on a kitchen counter.
If you are lucky enough to be from an Italian-American family and you get to eat the Feast of the Seven Fishes and pasta for Christmas, then you’d be crazy not to rank this holiday #1 in food.
Mother’s Day
Rating: 3.5 Hungry Bibs
The first time I ever made a grown-up Mother’s Day brunch for my mom, I cooked a frittata with salmon, goat cheese, and asparagus, baked bran muffins with strawberries, composed a salad with shrimp, arugula, avocado, fennel, and orange vinaigrette, and served mimosas. It was then that I realized that Mother’s Day has some damn good food.
Why do we associate mothers with bright flavors and colorful meals? Or maybe it’s that the holiday falls just around the time that spring has started gaining speed and farmer’s markets are full of new produce. It’s a brunch holiday, but not in a greasy-spoon diner way. Mother’s Day is decidedly a fancy brunch holiday, and I’m all for it.
St. Patrick’s Day
Rating: 3.5 Hungry Bibs
I know you are thinking, “St. Patrick’s Day is a beer holiday, and not even good beer, where did this rating come from?” It’s true that St. Patrick’s Day is an embarrassing amateur hour of sloppy pints and an offensive appropriation of Irish culture. It’s true that Guinness in America tastes like a root beer from a broken soda fountain, but there’s one thing that redeems this annual mess: Shepherd’s Pie.
I don’t even eat meat and I love Shepherd’s Pie. What’s not to love about a buttery pile of baked mashed potatoes on top of a thick, savory stew of root vegetables elevated by thyme? It’s exactly what you want when you are ready for spring, but it’s still annoyingly cold outside, and you need something warm in your belly. Unlike New Year’s Eve, you are sent off to the pubs with something substantial to get you through multiple rounds of green beers and offensive songs.
Halloween
Rating: 4 Hungry Bibs
As a kid, Halloween is the best because you go treat-or-treating and collect sack-fulls of candy— more candy than you are allowed to possess at any other time in your life. Then, you pick what you want. Not a fan of Blow-Pops? Good news! Your friend Will loves them and will trade you for all the peanut candy he can’t eat because he’s allergic. Everyone gets what they want!
As an adult, Halloween becomes the unofficial celebration of the thing you’ve grown to love even more than you once loved candy: Pumpkin. There is pumpkin-flavored everything in late October. Because I make no apologies for being basic, I start treating myself to a PSL at least once a week during this time of year. Neon-orange branded versions of every type of food start popping up in stores: pumpkin yogurt, pumpkin macaroons, pumpkin pie chewing gum, pumpkin ravioli, pumpkin salsa, pumpkin fondue. I don’t know if it’s the creamy, earthy flavor of pumpkin or the ephemarilty of its ubiquitous presence, but I love it all.
It is also universally acknowledged that Halloween/fall has the best types of beers. This claim is non-negotiable and I have the blind-tasting-pumpkin-beer-party-hosting experience to prove it.
Fourth of July
Rating: 4.5 Hungry Bibs
America, fuck yeah, indeed! Ever notice that even the most anti-establishment hipsters embrace at least a kitschy sense of patriotism for July 4th? I think it’s because the holiday is a celebration of what we can all agree is the real meaning of being an American— not political bickering or pious sentiments of exceptionalism. What makes being American great is drinking with your friends on a beautiful piece of land while grilling up the bounties of the farms, ranches, and dairies of our heartlands at the peak of their season.
July 4th isn’t about family obligations or the high expectations of a picture-perfect dinner. Bring some paper plates, wear sandals and a tattered shirt, pick up some illegal fireworks to irresponsibly ignite when you’re drunk. This is America.
Cinco de Mayo
Rating: 5 Hungry Bibs
I bet you didn’t see this coming, but think about it. Look at that picture and tell me that, in your mind at least, you aren’t reaching over to squeeze one of those juicy limes on a taco and bite down until avocado fills your cheeks. Cinco de Mayo not only has the best food, but by early May, you are READY for it.
There was a Mexican restaurant in my college town that we all loved because they were generous with the chips and lenient on the I.D.s. They also had a glorious outdoor patio that overlooked one of the most well-tred parts of town. I remember one Cinco de Mayo, after having turned in my last final paper, being beckoned by friends and the siren-call of frozen margaritas to soak up the first hot afternoon of the year.
Mexican food is always amazing, but it tastes best when you find yourself peeling off your jacket to feel sunlight on your shoulders and the refreshment of a frozen cocktail. Give me spicy foods, melted cheese, notes of citrus, dustings of cilantro, and shots of tequila any day. But please be sure to give them to me surrounded by colorful flags and on every Cinco de Mayo until the day I die.
