At a White House Thanksgiving, tradition is a presidential thing

T raditional. Traditional! TRADITIONAL!!

Oh how many times Cristeta Comerford hears that word around this time of year. So many times that the White House executive chef breaks into song to explain — ever so briefly, ever so cautiously.

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Thanksgiving recipes from the White House: First-family favorites like Laura Bush’s green beans or Mamie Eisenhower’s pumpkin pie add personality to the holiday spreads in America’s most famous home.

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With Thanksgiving just days away, Post reporter Manuel Roig-Franzia drops in to tell us how the Obamas and first families before them have carried out Thanksgiving traditions.

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“I feel like belting out, ‘Traaaaaaaaa-di-SHUN!’ ” she trills, tossing an arm into the air, channeling her best Broadway-songstress vibe.

Here in the snug, stainless-steel kitchen of America’s most famous home, generations of White House chefs have heard the same request for adherence to tradition that first lady Michelle Obama has delivered to Comerford since 2009. Our presidents and their families are forever asking for a Thanksgiving meal that will feel familiar to them, and, it goes without saying, to the American people.

But tradition is a funny creature. It has a certain elasticity. Look beyond the predictable roasted turkey and the pies, peer around the not-so-stunning stuffing, and you’ll find presidential Thanksgiving menus that provide fresh little insights about each first family’s tastes and about the way Americans eat.

The Obamas plan to celebrate at the White House on Thursday for the fourth year in a row. Logs will roar in the fireplaces on the first floor of the White House. Family and staff on an undisclosed guest list will gather. The host couple reflect their times, an era of organic-this and local-that. So, this Thanksgiving their menu features a kale and fennel salad, the main ingredients harvested from their history- and headline-making White House Kitchen Garden, that potent symbol of the first lady’s healthful-eating crusade just steps away from the White House stoves.

No creamy, gloppy, fattening dressing, either. Their fresh produce will be dappled with a dressing that would make a dietitian beam, blended from shallots, lemon juice, red wine vinegar and olive oil.

Yet this is also a family not afraid of the occasional indulgence. Remember those presidential burger runs to Five Guys and Ray’s Hell Burger? Their Thanksgiving menu takes that tendency into account during the dessert course with not one or two, but six pies. Huckleberry? Okay, not so traditional. But each Thanksgiving, those helpful, anonymous White House sources remind us that the president’s favorite is the most traditional of all: pumpkin.

The details of the Obamas’ private family gathering are treated with a delicacy approaching the handling of national security secrets. One drizzles out, though. William Yosses, the White House executive pastry chef, confides that the president’s favored pie is jazzed up by some acorn squash to give it a dash of color and complexity — a far cry from the canned pumpkin pie that Yosses’s mother made when he was a child. Last year, Yosses used a sugar pumpkin, a variety that is smaller and has a firmer flesh than the bulky varieties most often turned into Halloween jack-o-lanterns.

It’s a comforting notion, our president liking best what we like best on a national holiday that officially dates back to the “day of Thanksgiving” declared by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. But it lacks the flair of, say, George W. Bush, who sometimes sat down on Thanksgiving Day to an out-of-context Morelia-style gazpacho, or William Howard Taft, the portly 27th president with the bushy mustache and the adventurous palate.