Mashed! Stuffing's Thanksgiving Reign Ends

Make a bit more room on your plate for Mashed Potatoes!

The starchy side-dish out-polled two-time defending champion Stuffing in DtB's annual Thanksgiving Poll. Mashed Potatoes earned 25% of the vote to Stuffing's 22%.

Pumpkin Pie, a vegetable disguised as dessert, finished third with 20%, while Turkey, long considered the focal point of Thanksgiving foods, finished 4th with 17%

In all, a record 79 DtB readers voted in the poll.

Cranberries finished 5th with 10% of the votes. Gravy, the holiday's guilty pleasure, finished a distant 6th with 3% of the vote.

Mashed Potato coach Buddy Russet had nothing but praise for his team of pulverized tubers.

"I can't say enough about my spuds," Russet said from the team's training center in Idaho. " We finished third in '07 and were co-runner's up last year, so this victory is the result of three years of hard work. We come to the poll hoping to represent ourselves well every year -- to win it, well, that's just gravy!"

Stuffing coach David Gates tipped his hat to Mashed Potatoes.

"I congratulate the new champs, they deserve the title," he said. "I'm proud of my Stuffing team, too. We certainly don't feel like leftovers."