Thanksgiving is supposedly about a lot of things: turkey, football, giving thanks… That’s in theory. In practice, it boils down to one thing for most of us, eating as much as humanly possible around an over-laden table.

But that’s not the end of the story. Not everything on that table is created equal. Cranberries and green bean casserole are all well and good, but the real feasting usually comes down to a single item, the bowl over which everybody at the table fights, the only one guaranteed to be empty at the end of the meal.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Americans and their fondness for mashed potatoes.

No matter whether I’ve cooked at home, cooked for families at church, been visiting others, the story has been the same. There’s an all-out battle—a scrum, even—to see who will dom

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