Inspired by Delaware
THE MEAL
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This Thanksgiving, I’m flying home to Utah on Thanksgiving Day, which means I won’t be able to help much with the meal preparations. Which is a shame, because—if you couldn’t tell—I like making food.
But this meal gave me the perfect opportunity to make traditional Thanksgiving foods on my own a few weeks early! My house smelled AMAZING, and it made me so happy.
BOBBIE SANDWICH WITH HOMEMADE HOAGIE ROLLS & ROAST TURKEY
Capriotti’s Sandwich Shop is currently based in Nevada, but the first restaurant was founded in Little Italy, Wilmington, Delaware, by siblings Lois and Alan Margolet, who named it after their grandfather, Philip Capriotti.
It’s now a booming franchise throughout the country, and their most popular sandwich is this one: the Bobbie. In 2000, it was voted “The Greatest Sandwich in America” on AOL.com. I can see why! We Americans love our sandwiches, and we love Thanksgiving food. Put them together, and *chef’s kiss*
Every Capriotti’s restaurant slow-roasts whole turkeys for 12 hours each night so it’s freshly shredded for sandwiches each day. Since I live alone, I just made a turkey breast instead, and my roast only took about an hour and a half. But it was incredibly tasty. My family’s go-to is usually to slow-cook a turkey in a smoker for Thanksgiving, but this herb coating gave it such an amazing punch of savory flavor that I would absolutely use it for a whole turkey someday.
I really wanted to make the cranberry sauce from scratch too, because it’s super easy and delicious and I LOVE cranberry sauce. But, alas, fresh cranberries weren’t available at my local grocery store yet.
The stuffing also wasn’t made from scratch, but that’s because I’ve never really cared to eat stuffing, let alone make it from scratch. I much prefer cranberry sauce or gravy with turkey instead of stuffing.
Making the hoagies from scratch was a process, but it was pretty simple and better than anything I would’ve bought off the shelf. I kind of wish I’d tried making foot-long hoagies, but these six-inchers made huge sandwiches on their own, so foot-long would’ve been overkill.
Overall, this sandwich was awesome. It was a little weird to put stuffing on a sandwich (“You want some soggy bread on your dry bread?”), but combined with the cranberry sauce and roast turkey, it really was like Thanksgiving in a sandwich. All it was missing was mashed potatoes and gravy!
This was a great way to start the autumn season.
BAKED MACARONI & CHEESE
A Thanksgiving sandwich was one of the most American things I’d ever made, but macaroni and cheese really rounded out the all-American feel of this meal! While macaroni noodles came from Europe, Thomas Jefferson and his slave James Hemings are credited for introducing macaroni with Parmesan cheese in the new United States. A recipe for macaroni and cheese was found in the 1824 cookbook The Virginia Housewife, one of our country’s most influential cookbooks. Her recipe only called for macaroni, cheese, and butter.
Sometimes that’s all you need to get your mac ‘n’ cheese fix, but there are so many amazing ways to make this simple food, and people from Delaware seem to be passionate about finding the best. I couldn’t find any concrete answers for why mac ‘n’ cheese is especially popular in Delaware, just that it is. They even have a restaurant called Mad Macs that’s macaroni-and-cheese themed! (I want to go to there.)
Thankfully this food is simple to make yourself, and this recipe was THE BOMB. The touch of dijon mustard and nutmeg really brought out the flavor of the cheese and noodles and put it a step above other pasta dishes I’ve made before. I’m still a sucker for the classic Velveeta cheese with macaroni, but this recipe would be a crowd-pleaser for sure. I’ve been happily eating the leftovers all week, and I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of it.
STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE
Strawberry shortcake has been around for centuries and is popular in Europe and North America, but I chose it for this state’s dessert because strawberries are Delaware’s state fruit, and strawberry shortcake is another American classic that matched the rest of this meal well. Strawberries grow wild throughout the state of Delaware and were commonly harvested by Native Americans long before settlers arrived. In 1899, Sussex County, Delaware, exported 7 million quarts of strawberries—more than any other county in the entire U.S. at the time!
A lot of people make strawberry shortcake with sponge cake, but the “real” way to eat it is with a kind of biscuit. That’s actually what “shortcake” means—a cake that’s unleavened, making it dense and short. The biscuit recipe only calls for a couple tablespoons of sugar, so it’s not especially sweet. I really liked it this way—having a less-sweet biscuit really balances out the strawberry sauce and whipped cream and makes the sugar less overwhelming.
It’s a simple dessert that tastes SO GOOD made from scratch. If you have the time, I highly recommend making the biscuits, sauce, and whipped cream yourself instead of buying the ingredients pre-made. It’ll take an already-awesome dessert up to 11.
So how do you think I did? Let me know in the comments if you have any suggestions for improvement, and be sure to tune in next time for my take on a meal inspired by New Jersey! If that’s where you’re from, what do you think I should make to represent your state? Bonus points if you have reliable recipes or pro tips before I make the attempt! Thank you for reading!