Nostalgia Cooked
November 10, 2026
No. 20

“Hands, please”

The dynamics behind a Thanksgiving meal, the hot mustard takes of the year, and why our refrigerators are under attack this week.

Coffee, then read on.

- Chef Tim

Thanksgiving is without a doubt my favorite holiday of the year. How could it not be? For one afternoon, a whole lot of us sit down around a table and take a minute to be grateful for what we’ve been given and who’s in front of us. Getting that much of anybody’s attention these days feels like a small miracle. Give it five minutes and somebody will pull out a phone to ask a robot why we celebrate Thanksgiving in the first place. But before anyone sits down, you have to get dinner on the table.

The architecture of a good Thanksgiving dinner is a lot like running a restaurant for a day. You’re competing for counter space in your own kitchen. The pot you need for the gravy is the one you’re using for the potatoes. The dishwasher is full, which means congratulations, you’re also the dishwasher. And if you didn’t prep ahead, you’ll spend the afternoon slowly getting deeper into the shit while trying to convince your guests you’re happy to see them.

I’m grateful for that part, too. Thanksgiving gives anybody who cooks it a glimpse of how ridiculous a day in a restaurant kitchen can be. People walk into a restaurant the following week with a little more appreciation for what it takes to get a hot meal to the table, especially if they just spent twenty minutes trying to get the gravy and the potatoes hot at the same time.

The part I care about most, though, is what we keep cooking. When I look through old American menus, they are rooted in the tradition of game birds and stocks made from their bones. Well balanced acid from cranberry, the unique homemade feel of dressing or stuffing, the lusciousness of mashed potatoes laced with butter, perhaps a creamy pickled onion to cut your sweet potato casserole? The list goes on. This is exciting, the meal shows us how awesome and unique American cooking could be and can be when we seek to achieve fun and interesting ways of doing it.

I hope we make time to show somebody how to cook it, too. Have your dad show you what he means by “enough stock” for the stuffing. Ask your aunt to let you take over the mashed potatoes while she’s there to tell you when to stop. A recipe can tell you how much butter to use, but it’s hard to write down exactly what your mother means when she says, “Here, feel this.”

I never knew my grandparents, but I know their stuffing recipe. My mom knows it because her mom showed her. When I make it, I get to do something my grandmother did in her own kitchen, even though I never got to stand in it with her. I think that’s one of the most beautiful things about cooking.

If there’s a dish your family looks forward to every year, bring somebody into the kitchen while you make it. Let them get their hands in it. You never know who’ll be making it fifty years from now, or who they’ll think of when they do.

Thanks, Mom, for carrying on what your mom gave you.

Before service, the whole crew huddles up and someone tells the story behind the food. Pull up a crate, you’re on the line tonight.

We put luxury, midrange, and budget mustards in the same lineup. Four of us tasted and ranked them independently. When we combined our rankings, one brand took all three top spots.

I was more surprised by the sweep than by the winner. The dill pickle and hot honey gave us two different ways to rethink mustard, and the plain yellow bottle still came out on top. It made me wonder how much of what I taste in French’s is the mustard itself, and how much is every hot dog I’ve ever eaten.

The ancient Romans made an early version of the condiment by mixing crushed mustard seeds with grape must, the juice pressed from grapes before fermentation. That ingredient gave mustard its name. Wine still matters to some styles, especially in Burgundy, where it can help determine what a producer is legally allowed to call the mustard.

In France, Moutarde de Bourgogne carries a protected geographical indication. To use the name, producers have to follow a specification that ties the mustard to Burgundy, including regionally grown seeds and Burgundy white wine with a designation of origin. Dijon mustard, despite taking its name from a city in Burgundy, is a style that can be made elsewhere. Two jars can look almost identical on the shelf, but only one name tells you where its key ingredients came from.

The seed makes a difference. Yellow mustard seeds, also called white mustard seeds, are generally the mildest. Brown seeds bring more bite and are common in Dijon-style mustard. Black seeds will be especially pungent. Crush the seeds and add water, and you bring out the heat. What happens next depends on the recipe. Vinegar mellows that bite, and turmeric helps give American yellow mustard its school bus yellow color.

Japanese karashi shows how much punch a yellow-looking mustard can pack. It’s made by mixing mustard powder with water to form a paste, and in Japan it’s often sold in tubes. Chinese hot mustard, familiar to many Americans from the little packets that come with takeout, can also start with mustard powder and water.

French’s traces its pairing with the hot dog to the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, where the company introduced its mustard to the public. The pairing has had more than a century to sink in. Grey Poupon found a different place in the American imagination. Its Rolls-Royce ads made a jar of Dijon essentially fancy, even if you were spreading it on a sandwich over the kitchen sink. I can picture both jars without seeing the labels, and I know which one I’d reach for depending on what’s on my plate.

Have we been eating yellow mustard for so long that a cheeseburger tastes like it’s missing something without it? McDonald’s gives us two versions of that question. Its regular cheeseburger gets mustard as a topping. On a Big Mac, the mustard note is part of the special sauce. I wonder how many bites it would take to notice if that tang disappeared. And what would I dip a soft pretzel? After sampling twenty mustards this weekend, I have to say, I want more mustard. The variety that mustard brings to the table is extremely underrated and should be celebrated more. Just not Arby’s horsy sauce which placed last.

I can make a case for a sharper mustard on a sandwich or a hotter one with an egg roll. But hand me a hot dog and I want French’s Original Yellow. I want the first bite to taste exactly the way I remember.

For Thanksgiving this year, I’d pour 2024 Elk Cove Willamette Valley Pinot Noir. It’s juicy, with red cherry and a little spice that go right along with roast turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. I’m thankful for the kids’ table. They drop twice as much and ask half as many questions.

The Nostalgia Table

The second Monday of every month · 7 o’clock · Eight seats. Location shared by post the week of. Subscribers receive first word. Write for a seat