From candied yams to honey glazed ham, Debbie Elkind brings you the ultimate Thanksgiving feast – a spread truly worth being thankful for. Thanksgiving is celebrated on Thursday, 22 November in 2012.

• Have a look at our Thanksgiving recipes.
  

Although I lived in California for eight years, where I enjoyed many wonderful Thanksgiving dinners, the most memorable Thanksgiving I’ve ever spent was at Victor’s Soul Food Kitchen in Ultimo (now closed), which was then owned by Louisiana-born chef Victor Kimble, a true master of American southern cuisine.

At Victor’s we felt welcomed in to a real down-home kitchen, with all of the warm southern hospitality and delicious eating that implies. We feasted on an amazing spread of roast turkey with stuffing and cranberry sauce, corn bread, honey-glazed ham, black eyed peas, barbecued ribs, fried chicken, homemade baked beans, collard greens and, of course, sweet potato and pumpkin pie. As if all that wasn’t enough to be grateful for, the singers of the Harlem Gospel Choir were enjoying their Thanksgiving dinner there too. As the meal drew to a close they began to sing and call out their blessings – a token of thanks to Victor for his amazing cooking.

While it’d be hard to host a Thanksgiving dinner that could top that, it’s worth doing at least once in your lifetime, wherever you live, if only to enjoy such sweet treats as pumpkin pie and candied yams. And, according to Victor, it’s now easy to find all of the ingredients you need here in Australia.

“My favourite as a kid was always the ham and turkey,” says Victor. He fondly recalls the stuffing his mother made with turkey livers, giblets and whole oysters resting inside the cavity alongside diced capsicum, celery and onion.

“You can’t forget the fried chicken for people who don’t like turkey, but the turkey and ham were always the main thing in our house,” he says. “Cornbread is also always a huge hit.”

“We’d have turkey and ham everything for weeks after – turkey sandwiches, salads, turkey hash – but that sort of food always tastes good days later because the herbs and spices you put in the turkey come to maturity.”

Victor’s mother would make her turkey hash by chopping up turkey and adding corn kernels, diced potato, celery and capsicum and some beaten egg, flour and water to bind it before frying or baking. “Then we’d eat the hash over steamed rice,” says Victor.

“I tell people all the time that [southern cooking] goes back to the time of slavery. People got scraps and they learned how to make the best of what they had. The beauty of it is that they made food delicious with herbs and spices they’d harvested themselves.”

Although modern takes can vary widely, and all families have their own food traditions, a typical American Thanksgiving dinner would include roast turkey with stuffing and gravy served with cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, creamed spinach, green beans or collard greens and candied yams followed by pie and ice-cream (typically pumpkin, sweet potato, apple or cherry).

If it’s your first time cooking a Thanksgiving dinner, Victor suggests the following menu should be relatively easy to both source ingredients for and prepare:

• Roast turkey with stuffing and cranberry sauce to serve
• Honey-glazed ham with maraschino cherries and pineapple
• Green beans or collard greens
• Black-eyed peas
• Cornbread
• Pumpkin and/or sweet potato pie

Sadly, the former Sydney-based Victor’s Soul Food Kitchen is now closed, as is Victor’s subsequent Queensland eatery. But the good news is that you can now buy his new range of products, which includes BBQ sauce, spice blends, Andouille sausage, gumbo and jambalaya, online at Soul Food Kitchen as well as at selected retail outlets throughout Australia.

Do It Yourself

Roast turkey
Roast turkey is the main du jour for most Americans on Thanksgiving. Two turkeys are spared however. In a somewhat bizarre American tradition, every year since 1989 the US president has granted two lucky turkeys a Presidential Pardon.

Cranberry sauce
Cranberry sauce is readily available in Australian supermarkets but if you have the time it’s well worth making your own. Fresh cranberries can be hard to source, but frozen cranberries make a fine substitute (simply defrost on a baking tray first).

Candied yams
Candied yams are sweet potatoes baked with lots of brown sugar and butter. Sometimes other flavours are added, such as orange juice, and marshmallows are frequently dotted over the top and browned. While to an Australian palate the idea of using vegetables such as sweet potatoes or pumpkin in a sweet, rather than savoury, dish seems odd, candied yams are totally delicious, as is pumpkin pie. Candied yams are served alongside the main course, whereas pumpkin or sweet potato pies are enjoyed as desserts.

Pumpkin pie
Victor says sweet potato and pumpkin pie is an absolute essential of any Thanksgiving dinner. He uses butternut pumpkin “because it’s less stringy” and spices it up with his ‘Sweet Treat’ blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and sugar.

Collard greens
Collard greens are what Australians call Asian greens. You can use collard, mustard, turnip or kale leaves. “My mother would tear the leaves off and roll them up like a wrap. Then she’d chop them finely and boil until tender in a pot with smoked ham hocks or turkey wings,” says Victor. Victor likes to add lemon pepper and garlic to his and he cooks them with either ham hocks or smoked turkey wings depending on how heath-conscious his guests are.