Reporter Sandip Roy desperately seeks turkey in Calcutta; tea-rubbed maple turkey; The Sporkful's Dan Pashman on Thanksgiving anxiety; holiday call-ins with Sara Moulton; the myth of triptophan with Dr. Aaron Carroll; The New Yorker's Adam Gopnik on his first Thanksgiving in 1980 in New York; J. Kenji Lopez-Alt on make-ahead mashed; and wine expert Stephen Meuse says Burgundy wines are best for the holiday table.

Would you like to spend Thanksgiving with Mo Rocca, Amy Sedaris, and Robert Krulwich? Well unfortunately, you can't. But listening to this one-hour radio special, hosted by Dan Pashman of The Sporkful podcast and Cooking Channel’s You’re Eating It Wrong, is the next best thing.

"Thanksgiving Is For Eaters" is an entertaining combination of in-studio interviews, listener calls, and in-kitchen segments. You’ll learn useful tips about how to make classic Thanksgiving dishes, interesting facts about the science of cooking and the art of eating, and surprising details about the ways in which diverse cultures have adapted Thanksgiving traditions and made them their own.

So how do some of public radio's favorite personalities celebrate Thanksgiving?

"I start the day feeling inadequate," says Mo Rocca. "Because I don't cook."

So begins host Dan Pashman's quest to prepare listeners of all skill levels for every aspect of the big day.

Rocca and Amy Sedaris share tips for holiday entertaining, covering everything from what music to play to mediating family disputes. NY Times Magazine drinks columnist Rosie Schaap brings Dan to her bar, where she offers the perfect cocktail for a fall day in the kitchen (pro tip: not too many!). Radiolab’s Robert Krulwich discusses the economics of leftovers and tells the story of the time a turkey tried to put the moves on his wife. On the Media’s Brooke Gladstone takes Dan into her kitchen to teach him how to make her trademark Thanksgiving dessert, a Mennonite dish with saltines in it. (Spoiler alert: Everything goes wrong to hilarious effect, but the dish still comes out just right.) Plus: Kenji Lopez-Alt of Serious Eats breaks down the science of bird-brining and basting, and NY Times food editor Sam Sifton explains why cloth napkins on the table are the equivalent of a leather interior in a car.

Between these lively conversations, you’ll hear from listeners all over the country recounting the sights, smells and tastes that answer the question, “How do you know it’s Thanksgiving in your house?” And we even check in with a real Thanksgiving veteran, a beleaguered but always cheerful Butterball Turkey Talkline Lady. 

Jell-O could seem like a trivial food. It’s brightly colored-- vibrantly orange, electric green or unsettlingly blue—nutritionally void, and, hey, it jiggles. But in Appalachia, Jell-O marked a transformation in the lives of rural residents.

In this episode of Gravy, Kentucky writer Lora Smith sifts through a trove of oral histories that demonstrate the sea change in culinary that Jell-O represented. It served, for these communities, as a benchmark in a time. Life could be sorted into a pre-Jell-O and a post-Jell-O era. 

When the Mayflower was being stocked for the long journey to the New World, beer was among the highly valued stores put aboard.  This week on Beer Notes, we are discussing beer on the Mayflower and in the early colonies.

Water was the last thing that anybody wanted to drink because it carried the risk of disease.  Water was boiled during the beer making process and thus rendered the beverage much safer. 

The Mayflower’s Captain, rationed 1 gallon of beer to each man and woman on the ship.  Even some children enjoyed beer rations.

They Mayflower took 66 days to cross the ocean.  They set sail for Virginia, but were blown off course.  Captain Jones needed to conserve enough beer for the return trip so he recommended the ship land near Plymouth and not push for Virginia.  Willam Bradford, the ship’s diarist, complained that the passengers “were hastened ashore and made to drink water, that the seamen might have more beer.” ^[1]

After establishing a settlement, the colonists started brewing beer.  Because barley crops often failed and importing malt was prohibitively expensive, some brewers were using ingredients more common here.  Corn was a staple in early American beers and “the meat of the pumpkin took the place of malt entirely” in some beers produced in the mid 1600s^[2] 

Shore Craft Beer wishes all settlers in this New World, a very Hoppy Thanksgiving.  May beer be part of your celebration as it has been for hundreds of years!  For Beer Notes, this is Ann McGinnis Hillyer

FM Odyssey takes you on a journey with songs that make you feel this time of year. From artists you know and some you forgot you know. Plus an exclusive FM Odyssey version of Alice's Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie!

This week it’s Thanksgiving Rules: turkey, cranberry sauce and cake versus pie. We chat with Stella Parks about her pumpkin pie secret and a fresh twist on à la mode; Vivian Howard invites us to her kitchen for North Carolina turkey and sides; chefs, authors, listeners and friends share their favorite Thanksgiving memories; Dr. Aaron Carroll talks food safety and stuffing; we make a quick Cranberry and Candied Ginger Buckle; and Adam Gopnik talks the magic of leftovers.