SethG

That sounds like a recipe that is in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. When I make plain creamed spinach, I too, simply boil cream with the spinach until it is reduced to the desired consistency. But if I recall correctly-and it's been about 20 years since I last made it-that crepe recipe is made w/ a Mornay Sauce. Sorry, I don't own a copy or I'd look it up for you. It was a fun recipe-the crepes were coated w/ filling, then stacked into a souffle dish to bake. You cut it into wedges like a cake to serve. While we're on the subject of the obscene, I want to add that I know exactly what Julia Child recipe you were talking about, marie-louise. It's called a "mound" of crepes a la Florentine. I made it once, several months ago, and not only does it include 3 cups of Sauce Mornay to be poured over the mound, it includes alternating spinach/Mornay and mushroom/cream cheese layers between the crepes. We're talking here about an ENTIRE PACKAGE of cream cheese. Julia describes the mound as "amusing," and I thought it looked rather ugly, until I cut a wedge out of it. It's actually quite beautiful when you can see all the layers. My wife loved it. I couldn't eat more than a few bites, it was so rich. Edited for grammar.

I thinks that's why Steingarten advises against doing all the turns. He's worried the shell will get messed up-- and having done this myself, I'd be a little afraid of a leg falling off during the final turn! As for the blackness, I guess actual miles vary. All ovens are different, and the thickness of the paste is going to vary depending on the size of your bird. Mine was pretty black, though; more so than the photo might lead you to believe. The flash photography made the red undertones come through more than they did to the naked eye. And thank you, rockhopper, I'm glad you liked my purple prose.

While we're plugging our own threads, have you tried Thompson's Turkey? That ice pack idea sounds inspired.

This book is out of print, but several used and new copies are available on Amazon.com. I just bought a used copy for $1.80! (I don't think there are any others left that are so cheap, but there are several in the $8 range.) Thanks for the tip.

Thanks, Akiko, I'm glad to see some people are interested! I'm sure brining helps any turkey, but I can't say how it might throw off Thompson's bird. I decided when I undertook to make the turkey that I'd stick to the recipe, and try variations later if I ever did it again. I can't imagine brining would hurt, though. It might make the bird cook faster, and could result in the turkey being done before the stuffing is hot enough, but that's the only negative I can think of. Also, maybe brining would make the turkey so tender that after it's cooked by the Thompson method, it would fall apart completely! I do think the coating made a difference. Even though the white meat was cooked too long, it was still very moist. I think without the coating it would have been dry. About the size of the bird: I don't know why it has to be so big. Can anyone else enlighten us?

Paula, thank you so much for participating in this Q & A! I had the good fortune to spend a week in the Perigord this past May with my wife and child. We stayed in Domme, and got around to most of the obvious nearby towns, including Beynac, La Roque Gageac, Sarlat, Monpanzier, St. Cyprien, Limeuil, and others. Apart from the incredible landscape and castles in the region, we looked forward to cooking from foods bought on the "market day" in each of the towns we visited. And these markets did provide amazing strawberries and white asparagus, among other tasty treats. But we thought the markets were really very expensive-- more so than our local greenmarkets in New York City! And we also found there to be a certain quality of sameness to what was offered, and we wondered whether the stuff available was really any different from what we saw in the gourmet stores in Paris. Finally, we thought some items, especially the bread, were actually substandard. This shocked us. I don't know when you were last in Southwest France, but I want to ask you, what is your experience with these markets? Are they "local," in any sense of the word, or are they really a sort of quaint shopping mall for the tourists? Where do the locals go to get their produce? It seemed to us that there were plenty of locals at the markets, but it also seemed to us that the people in the know had to have other options. Thanks again.

Thanks for that advice, Sinclair. I wondered what caused the problem; I had no idea. I thought maybe I didn't cook it long enough. But it's true, I did get the eggs good and frothy.

There's a nice Marcella Hazan recipe that calls for bluefish fillets. I forget the proportions but they're really not very important. I'll give you a "fair use" summary of the essence of the recipe. You take a couple pounds of potatoes, and cut them into very thin slices; I do it with a knife, but you could mandoline them if you want. I like the rustic variations in the widths of the slices when I use a knife. Then you scatter them in a roasting pan in a single layer, put some olive oil in the pan, and get the potatoes coated. Then scatter a bunch of chopped garlic, salt and pepper on top. Roast in a hot oven-- 450 or 475 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes; they should be half-done, starting to brown. Then stick a couple pounds of bluefish fillets (with the skin on, skin side down) atop the potatoes, scatter more garlic, olive oil, salt & pepper, and maybe some chopped parsley on top, and roast for another 12 to 15 minutes. That's it. So simple, and very tasty. The potatoes come out crisp, oily, and garlicky. And the fish should be just cooked. Yum.

Several months ago I raided my mother's cookbook shelf, which was full of perfectly good, never-used cookbooks she probably obtained through the Book of the Month Club. Among these books were two of Pierre Franey's 60 Minute Gourmet compilations. Each page is a reproduced column from the NY Times, in which he gives a main course and a suggested side, usually for about four people. And these cookbooks might be a little long in the tooth, but I've tried a bunch of things from the first volume and they really work. He always tells you a little bit about French technique, and although he simplifies some famous dishes, he does so to make the point that anyone can get the basic essence of many great dishes, at home, in a short period of time. Some of the sections depend on expensive cuts of meat in order to come in on schedule-- the veal section comes to mind. But I've made his simplified Coq au Vin a number of times, and although he refuses to label it Coq au Vin because of his simplifications, it remains a wonderful and quick (and "gourmet-like"!) meal.

Also, I want to add, I saw in a store today a pair of All Clad turkey turners for $30. I don't think I would pay $30 for such equipment, when you could pay much less for something like this to do the same job!

Nothing was wrong with the beans, Suzanne F. I'm just looking for more ideas. And brussels sprouts, well, yuck. But Soba's thread is starting to bring me around to experimenting with them. A lot of you eGullet types really seem to like them... I may try your pie this very weekend, or even sooner, Jaymes. Thanks. (And where did you find it, Tommy?) Edited to mask my stupidity.

That's great, Ling. Thank you-- I didn't find it because it isn't a pie, it's a "Derby Style" Bourbon Pecan Tart! That is the one you meant, right?

This is a great thread. I've been mulling over getting "Complete Techniques" and "New Making of a Cook" for a while. Now I've ordered them. And "CookWise" was one I hadn't heard of--it contains a recipe for bourbon pecan pie, so I had to have that too! If anyone's looking for "The New Cook," there are several used copies available at Amazon.com.

Thanks Heather, I forgot! I also made Mark Bittman's cranberry sauce from How To Cook Everything. It's the simplest imaginable recipe: cranberries, sugar and water. And I thought it came out great. But I'd be interested in other ideas that are traditional with a twist. And thank you Mags. But you forgot to send me that private message. I never received it, get what I'm saying? We never had this conversation. I did not receive a copyrighted recipe from you, and in fact we've never even met. If anyone else wants that recipe, they should NOT contact either me or Mags by private message, because neither of us has it. Is that clear?

Jackal10: I only tasted the non-turkey stuffing as leftovers, but it was pretty hard to distinguish them from the leftover stuffing from inside the bird. It may be that the meat in the stuffing (which you'd never guess was in there) provides the same savory benefit that cooking inside the bird does. All that said, I think I'd still stuff the bird next time. I know doing that presents cooking challenges, but even if it's just my imagination, I think of stuffing made inside the turkey as more moist and flavorful. The stuffing is also supposed to help flavor the bird, and maybe it did-- parts of the turkey seemed more, well, complex than others. I think the most remarkable thing about the stuffing was that it tastes pretty normal. I had primed my guests to expect something strange, but this was totally unneccesary. It tasted like bread stuffing, but exceptionally good, moist, richly flavored stuffing. Suzanne F: Thanks for the tip re: Jubilee. I had a friend help me get everything home on Friday. And my daughter weighs more than the turkey anyhow, but I think your suggestion would have made for an interesting trip on the subway! We might have gotten some disapproving looks! I think there's two purposes served by basting: (1) I think if you don't baste, the paste may dry out too much and may crack, fall off, burn or something; and (2) I think, given that you're supposed to baste with a giblet/cider broth, that it's supposed to seep through and flavor the bird. But I don't know if it really did that. This may be another area where Steingarten has it wrong. He suggests that the recipe gives you too little paste to cover the bird, and so he tells you to triple the recipe. I followed his advice, but later I had to wonder: did I put too much paste on? Does this much paste keep the basting liquid from seeping through and flavoring the bird? Is Steingarten's heavy brush responsible for the difficulty he has removing the paste and the less-than-optimal skin left behind? Maybe next time I'll follow Thompson to the letter and ignore Steingarten, although his clarifications of many of the recipe's ambiguities are helpful.

This past Saturday, I served a mock Thanksgiving dinner to eight friends so I could try out some Thanksgiving dishes before my wife, children and I host our families this fall. I have no grounding in the holiday classics because there just wasn't a lot of cooking done in my house when I was growing up, and since I became suddenly obsessed with cooking only a few years ago and have largely taught myself a few things using classic cookbooks, I just didn't get around to holiday food until now. On Saturday, I made a turkey, but this thread isn't about that. Nor is it about stuffing. I want to talk about sides and pies. I made this green bean dish with lemon and rosemary. It was satisfying and easy, but not really especially appropriate to Thanksgiving. Any good holiday bean ideas out there? I made this maple squash puree, which was super easy, tasted great and could be made ahead. I would make this again in a heartbeat, but I'd welcome other squash ideas. I made these golden creamed onions, which were satisfying, but I think I might want to switch to creamed spinach. Any other good onion ideas for Thanksgiving? (I love onions, by the way.) I made this mac & cheese. This again was not really holiday-appropriate, but I'd never made it before (from scratch) and I wanted to be sure we had enough food. I also learned just the other day, right here on eGullet, that mac & cheese is really made with the French classic Sauce Mornay, with Cheddar instead of Gruyere cheese. I thought this was hilarious, so I had to make it. And I made a marinated mushroom recipe from the New New York Times Cookbook (the second one, from 1976 or so), which was nice, but would have been more appropriate on an antipasti table than at Thanksgiving dinner. I really want to do something with mushrooms. Can you give me good ideas? Stuffed, or whatever. In the pie department, I made this pumpkin pie, which was exactly the traditional pie I wanted, and this pecan pie, which turned out not to be the classic you always see with all the pecan pieces on top, but instead had everything mixed in, and it didn't set right. Can someone direct me to a recipe for a good, solid, traditional pecan pie, or maybe a good bourbon pecan pie? And any other good, classic sides and desserts. I'm looking for links to recipes on the web, or book recommendations. Thanks to all for any guidance you can provide! And I could have placed this thread in the Holidays & Special Occasions category, but Cooking just seems to get a lot more traffic. And the threads there seem to relate more to what people cooked, rather than how to cook it.

I've got two things to say here: (1) Bravo. (Although I'm sure Toliver meant well.) (2) Just wait 'til you actually have the baby! I'm looking forward to your rant then.

Saturday dinner: Invited a bunch of people over and had a dry run at Thanksgiving, which we'll be hosting this year for the first time. We had: Thompson's Turkey and stuffing James Beard's bread stuffing (as related by Mark Bittman) homemade cranberry sauce marinated mushrooms maple pureed butternut squash green beans with butter, lemon and rosemary macaroni & cheese creamed onions pumpkin pie and pecan pie

Thompson's Turkey Part two: a Whole Lotta Basting Going On So I stood in my kitchen with the stuffing ready to go, and figured I was most of the way home. And I was, but there was still plenty to do. I shoved as much of the stuffing as I could into the turkey's cavity and neck, and still had about half the stuffing left over. (And this was an 18-and-a-half pound bird!) Then Thompson says to skewer the bird and tie the strings. Steingarten says that sewing up the bird is better. I can't really imagine why there's a big difference, but I don't have a trussing needle. I have a bunch of small skewers (designed for chickens), so I trussed the bird by my own special technique, which I call the "el stupido" method. I stuck skewers in pretty much random spots, ran string between the skewers, and tied it all up as best I could. The turkey was now ready to go in the oven. It was 4:00. The turkey was to brown on each side for fifteen minutes at my oven's highest setting, 550 degrees. After about ten minutes of this, my kitchen started to fill with smoke. After another five minutes, I had to turn the bird over, a challenge that I barely conquered. This is where you really need more than one person in the kitchen. They only reason I was able to turn the turkey was that it had only been in the oven 15 minutes; I could still touch parts of the turkey with my hands. And even with this advantage, I still bent and nearly snapped in half a huge stainless steel ladle I used as a crow bar. And I had to get the paste done before the other side finished browning. This paste contains egg yolks, flour, salt, lemon juice, a little cayenne, and onion juice. I had no idea how to make onion juice, so I just ran another onion through my food processer until it was reduced to mush, and got out the most liquidy bits. One the bird was browned, I turned the heat down to 325 degrees and applied the paste. The recipe requires that you brush the paste all over the turkey, then let the paste set for a few minutes in the oven, then take the bird out and paste it up again. Then repeat until you've used up the paste. I dutifully followed the directions, applying paste three or four times. Here's a shot of the big bird right after it was done browning, as I applied the first coat of paste: And here's a shot of the turkey after the last coat of paste, maybe fifteen minutes later: It looks like turkey "a la diable," but that ain't mustard, it's egg yolk! And then the bird went back in the oven again, to be basted every fifteen minutes for the next four to five hours with the giblet broth I'd been simmering ever since the project started three hours before. And baste I did, like clockwork. As the bird cooked, the yellow paste started to brown, then turn a rich rust color, and finally, as promised, it turned almost completely black. Here's a shot of the turkey taken somewhere in the middle of this process: And here's how the turkey looked when I took it out of the oven for the final time, just after 9:00 p.m.: The turkey looked good. It rested for twenty minutes, and then I pried off all the paste. This, I have to say, was a hassle. And although it worked pretty much as advertised, and I lost almost none of the skin, the skin that remained beneath the bird wasn't crackling or particularly great. This was the worst feature of Thompson's turkey, but it was no surprise. Steingarten complains about this as well. I was more disappointed at the lack of pan drippings. I was planning to make gravy, even though Thompson's Turkey partisans say the delicious bird needs no gravy. But it was past 9:00 when we got the bird out of the oven, my motivation was flagging, and then when I looked in the pan, what I saw was very little liquid. And lots of lumps of blackened paste that had dripped off as I was painting the bird. When I saw that my gravy might taste more like plaster of Paris than turkey, I aborted it. And as for the turkey itself, it was a mixed bag. The dark meat really delivered. It was intensely flavorful, incredibly moist, falling-apart tender. Flat out great. The white meat, on the other hand, was good, but could have used some gravy. Don't get me wrong, for white meat it was pretty moist, but it just did not have that something special you want when you've coated the meat in cement and basted it sixteen or more times. The problem, I think, is that the white meat was overcooked. Thompson's original recipe asks you to start the turkey breast down, brown it, turn it breast up, brown it, then cook for 1 1/2 hours at 325 degrees, turn it breast down again, then turn the breast back up for the final fifteen minutes. Steingarten says that's too hard, and you can damage the bird turning it so much. So he advises browning the bird breast down, then turning it once, browning it breast up, and then just leaving it alone, breast up the whole rest of the way. Clearly Steingarten, like me, cooks alone. I couldn't have made all the turns called for by the original recipe. So I did it Steingarten's way. But when I did it that way, the white meat reached its desired temperature (170 degrees) a full hour before the stuffing and the dark meat reached theirs (160 and 180 degrees, respectively). I have a few thoughts on how to fix this white meat problem: (1) Get a helper and do it Thompson's way. (2) Do it Steingarten's way, but take the bird out when the white meat is done and carve off the breasts. Then put the turkey back in the oven until the rest is done. This creates a problem in that the breast meat doesn't rest before it's carved, but that beats overcooking, I reckon. And last, but not least, the stuffing. The stuffing was easily the best stuffing I've ever had. It was marvelous. Somehow everything melts together to form a unified whole. It was a big hit with our guests. Oh, and somewhere in there I made the green beans, creamed onions, and mac & cheese. We dropped the salad at the last minute. We had plenty of food. So would I do it again? I think the stuffing (which is what took the most time) was definitely worth it. I plan to use the Thompson stuffing for our Thanksgiving bird, whether or not we use the rest of the recipe. As for the pasting and basting, I'm less sure. I loved the dark meat, and maybe I would have loved the white too if it had been cooked the proper length of time. I have a feeling that when late November rolls around this year, I 'll be getting up early to make Thompson's stuffing, but I'll probably just stick the stuffing inside a bird I've brined and roast it more conventionally. But after a while, I'll probably try a Thompson's Turkey again. Maybe in a year, when I've forgotten how much work is involved.

Thompson's Turkey, part one: The Adventure Begins As I sit here now, enjoying a cold turkey sandwich, nibbling on leftover stuffing, trying to isolate the presence and determine the contribution of each of the stuffing's twenty-nine ingredients, my mind only occasionally wanders back to the struggle required to create this sandwich, this stuffing. How our brains play tricks on us! What a biological miracle it is, that we cannot remember the particulars of pain without effort. For there was pain. Oh yes. Lots of pain. Some of it was self-inflicted, and for this pain I blame no one but myself. But some was imposed on me by one Morton Thompson. And for this, well, who is to blame? After all, I can't say I wasn't warned. Shall I blame myself for this as well, or was there a higher power at work here? Could I have simply avoided the whole exercise, or was it destiny that led me to Thompson's Turkey? Twenty-four hours ago, I stood in my kitchen, bleeding, struggling to chop left-handed, repeatedly glancing at the clock to see the minutes slipping away, and cursed Morton Thompson, Jeffrey Steingarten, and myself. But now, in retrospect, has anything changed? Was it all worth it? Well, the turkey was pretty darn good. Let me tell you how it went. We had a bunch of people coming for dinner, but we weren't planning to eat until 8:30 p.m., or a little later, so I wasn't in that big a rush when the day started. I'd made a few sides the night before (marinated mushrooms, cranberry sauce, a back-up bread stuffing in case Thompson's sucked, and a maple squash puree), and I spent the morning making a pecan and a pumkin pie. I had plans to make a green bean dish, creamed onions, and a salad later, while the turkey was in the oven. Then I realized I didn't have any whipped cream or ice cream, so I ran out to the grocery store, and while I was there I suddenly feared I might not be making enough food for the eight adults who would be eating, so I decided to make some mac & cheese too. And once I got back, I put together a jar of preserved lemons (This had nothing to do with the night's meal, but I had a whole bunch of lemons I'd acquired cheap, and I didn't want them to go bad). Around the time I began the preserved lemons (it was after 1:00 p.m.), my wife started glancing though Jeffrey Steingarten's chapter on Thompson's Turkey. "It says here it took him three hours to get the bird in the oven," she said. "Don't you think you ought to get started?" I had forgotten he said that. I was planning on it taking me one hour to get the bird in the oven. "Don't worry," I lied, "I'm about to start. And we have plenty of time." I figured I'd be okay, since Steingarten probably took frequent breaks to drink Montrachet or sample caviar while he prepared his bird. But I was a little worried. So I started, already feeling behind. And I took the bird out, as instructed, washed it, and oiled it as Steingarten suggests. Then I salted and peppered it. Then I put the little bit of fat I could pull off the bird into a sauce pan with some water to render it for the stuffing, and put the giblets and the neck with a few spices in another pot to simmer for the basting effort to come later. Then I started to prepare the first of three bowls for the stuffing. In bowl #1, a deceptively easy-sounding bowl, I placed a cored, diced apple, a peeled, diced orange, a 20 oz. can of crushed pineapple, the grated rind of one half lemon, a drained, chopped eight-ounce can of water chestnuts, and three tablespoons of chopped preserved ginger. Only problem was, I was already rushing. As I opened the can of pineapple, the lid cut a huge gash in the ring finger of my right hand. It hurt a lot. And it was bleeding pretty bad. So I ran to the bathroom and discovered we had no bandaids. All we had were these gauzy little pads, so I tried to slow the bleeding (stopping it was out of the question) and wrapped one of the pads around my finger, then tightly fastened it with scotch tape. Then I ran back to the kitchen. And continued. (And I never got any blood in the food, don't worry.) Here's a photo of bowl # 1: Bowl #2 is much more involved than bowl #1, and my finger did not help matters. In this bowl I assembed Coleman's mustard, about eight different dried spices (see dave88's post above for the list), chopped fresh thyme, sage, oregano, marjoram, and savory, chopped parsley, four cloves of chopped garlic, six chopped stalks of celery, and four chopped large onions. I tried to chop slowly, but it was painful. I tried to chop with my left hand, but that was just idiotic. There was no way that was going to work. Ultimately, after I did the best job I could tearing apart the fresh spices and sort of chopping the garlic and the celery, I threw the onions in the food processor and I was done. Here's a shot of bowl number two, which would have been manageable but still time-consuming if I hadn't cut myself: Bowl # 3 was comparatively easy. Bread crumbs (I made mine earlier in the day), 3/4 pound ground veal and 1/4 pound ground pork, the rendered fat and a stick of butter: Then I tried to mix each bowl as instructed, and after that combine them all. This was a major pain and took forever. My right hand was basically useless, and so was a spoon, I found. The only way to acceptably mix the stuff was with my fingers, but I had to do it with just my left hand. Plus, the bowls were too full to be easily mixed, and they were the biggest bowls I had. So I had to divide bowls into smaller units, thereby dirtying a bunch more bowls, mix them, mix them with each other in small amounts, and keep combining bowls until the mixture collapsed enough that I could consolidate it. Eventually, it got mixed enough that I could fit the whole mass in one of my largest bowls: So there I was. The stuffing was done. It was 3:30 p.m.; I'd been working for almost two hours and I still had to stuff and truss the turkey, and make Thompson's paste (involving more chopping) before I could get the thing in the oven. I took a two-minute break to change my bandage and open a beer. Part 2 to follow.

"Up on Lexington, one-two-five. Feel sick and dirty, more dead than alive." --The Velvet Underground, "Waiting for the Man" Okay, so it wasn't Lexington, but it was 125th Street. The 125th Street Fairway, that is. (Sorry, non-New Yorkers. If you care to know what the hell I'm talking about, Fairway is probably the best grocery store in town. And they have a parking lot.) Thompson's Turkey countdown, t-minus two days. I made a run to the Uptown store tonight (Thursday) to get all my provisions, and it took me a few hours in the store, but I found everything I needed. Once I actually focused on the recipe long enough to get the ingredients, I really started to wonder if this was a good idea. Crushed pineapple, preserved ginger, water chestnuts, veal and pork? This is all going into the stuffing, folks. Now I just need to pick up my turkey, a fresh bird I ordered from Jubilee, a supermarket in downtown Manhattan. I still haven't figured out how I'm going to get home to Brooklyn tomorrow on the subway with both the turkey and my 20-month-old daughter. We're having a bunch of people over for the big event on Saturday (although not nearly enough to eat an eighteen to twenty pound turkey), and I'm going to try out some sides and desserts as well. I'm going to make a marinated mushroom thing tomorrow night, and a simple Mark Bittman cranberry sauce. Then first thing Saturday morning I'll make classic pumpkin and pecan pies. And then the only things I'm planning to make while the turkey's cooking are creamed onions and a "drunken" green bean recipe that I'm afraid I'll regret trying out. I'm not planning to make any potato dishes, since I know on Thanksgiving my sister-in-law will be bringing a sweet potato dish. I think this will be enough food. Maybe I'll add some kind of salad, or rice dish. We'll see how it goes. I will post pictures of the whole process. And the results, of course.

Snowangel, if you would, on your next visit to the market please get a sample of each of these types of garlic, then post pictures of each variety with tasting notes.

Wednesday dinner: Roasted chicken, done the Bittman 30-minute in the oven in a pre-heated cast-iron pan way. Asparagus with butter-lemon sauce (I keep making this sauce because it's the only way I can get my pregnant wife to tolerate asparagus). and leftover tomato tart.

Tuesday dinner: Pork chops with apples. (I brined the chops for a couple hours, and I think it made a difference. Very juicy.) Tomato-mozzarella tart with basil/garlic crust. (I've cried wolf before, but I think this really was my last tart of the season. The tomatoes at the greenmarket this week are just not what they were a few weeks ago. Although I should add that unlike Suzanne F I was pretty happy with them all summer long.) And I found nice red bell peppers at 75 cents a pound over the weekend, so I made pimientos out of them, and marinated them overnight in a Penelope Casas vinaigrette. Then I served them as a side dish instead of as a tapa. Delish! And so easy.

I'm sorry, but if this is your idea of a mea culpa, Carema, I'm not quite prepared to let it go. It's wonderful that you made time to prepare fresh food for your little ones almost all the time, but the premise of your "provocative" comments seems to be that baby food in a jar is something to feel guilty about using. And this just isn't the case. Years ago, there were all sorts of things in baby food (salt, MSG) that parents, if they'd known, might not have been happy about. This is no longer true, even for the non-organic lines, by and large. Any parent who takes the trouble to read a label or two can be sure that the bananas junior is eating are just bananas. And as you can see from many of the above comments, these bananas aren't disgusting at all. Many adults like them. We feed mush to infants--and we all do it-- because they can't chew. Whether it's from a jar or freshly made, it's still mush. And to the extent baby food is not worth being considered as food, it's generally the mushiness, and nothing else, that makes it so. (I know from personal experience that if you take a chicken breast, poach it, and puree it, you may feel good about yourself but you aren't going to want to eat it any more than you'd want to eat chicken from a jar.) With that said, I'm prepared to accept your general argument, that fresh food made from scratch is aesthetically more pleasing than prepared food. And if this is true for adults, why not for babies? These are perfectly valid points. But I think the aesthetic difference may be more discernable to adults than it is to babies, and thus its importance may be related more to the parents' wish to provide "only the best" than to any actual difference in the quality of care for the child. And by the way, thanks for asking, but my daughter is quite warm enough, and she doesn't need a hat.