Pass the Tofurky: Aggies create alternative Thanksgiving feasts
Some students at Utah State University have strict dietary requirements. Whether it be for health, religion or personal reasons, these requirements can prevent them from eating traditional Thanksgiving dishes.
If turkey or pumpkin pie is off limits, students and their families have to come up with creative alternatives. Students of various dietary situations shared what they and their families do for Thanksgiving dinner.
Kosher:
The Jewish law of purity and cleanliness can be strict, but most traditional Thanksgiving dishes do comply with Kosher law, provided they meet certain requirements.
“When we buy our turkey, it’s just like buying meat any other time of the year,” said engineering freshman Aaron Schumacher. “The Torah says we can eat poultry, like chickens and turkeys and normal birds. If you’re family is strictly Kosher, you’re only supposed to eat meat that’s been certified Kosher by some official inspector who just says that it was prepared under conditions that were Kosher. But as long as it is, we can eat it.”
He added that stuffing can be problematic, because there are strict requirements about which foods can be mixed and how, but homemade stuffing is usually fine. The most important thing with a Kosher Thanksgiving is that all the food is prepared separately and cleanly.
Halal:
The only real requirements for a Thanksgiving dinner in accordance with Islam is that there is no alcohol and that the meat is Halal, or lawful. This means the animal can’t be killed is certain ways and can’t be a pig.
“My family buys meat that has been marked as Halal,” said freshman Aakil Bari. “Usually there’s a label on the packaging, or you can look it up. Actually, a lot of meat in the U.S. is Halal, but it’s best to make sure.”
Gluten-free:
For those that have celiac disease, are gluten intolerant or are on a gluten-free diet, the problem foods are going to be rolls, stuffing and pie. Fortunately, this is a fairly simple problem to get around.
“Almost every grocery store carries gluten-free options for just about everything now, which is really nice because that wasn’t the case a few years ago,” said sophomore Sarah Johnson, who is studying education. “You can just pick up gluten-free stuffing right next to the regular stuffing and gluten-free rolls right next to the regular rolls. Pie can be tricky, but there are recipes for safe pie crusts online, or you could do what my family does and just have ice cream.”
Vegetarian:
Turkey may be the centerpiece of the Thanksgiving table, but for those who don’t eat meat, there are a slew of alternatives. There are dozens of online communities centered around inventing new vegetarian recipes.
“I just cut out the turkey from my Thanksgiving,” said freshman Rio Holtz. “You can get a Tofurky [a turkey made of tofu], but I don’t really like them. They taste weird. My mom makes this really good pumpkin casserole, and that’s our main course. Other than that, I guess we just have all the normal Thanksgiving stuff; rolls, cranberry sauce, pie, all that good stuff.”
Vegan:
Eating vegan is a little stricter than vegetarian because all the food that comes even tangentially from animals is excluded. This includes eggs, dairy and even honey. This means a large percentage of Thanksgiving foods are off the table, including most kinds of pie, rolls, gravy and even some kinds of mashed potatoes.
“It is fairly restrictive, but that just means you have to think creatively,” said sophomore biology major Jessica Miner. “My family likes to put stuffing in a lot of fruits and vegetables and make rolls with my mother’s recipe that cuts out all the dairy products. We put sweet potatoes in just about everything. It’s actually all pretty delicious.”
She also recommended finding a good egg replacer recipe, as it helps a lot in making vegan pie crusts and filling.
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