I think sweet potato casserole is one of those things that there is a window on acquiring a taste for, and it closes by ten years old. But once you have it, you have it for life :D

I feel ya on missing the family traditional foods. My mother makes these yeast rolls that are a recipe handed down from her mother handed down from her mother and so on, and every year that I've had thanksgiving elsewhere I have felt their absence keenly. Now that I'm baking again I have the recipe on hand so I never have to go without again, but it's not quite the same if I make them :)