“Most turkeys taste better the day after, my mother’s tasted better the day before”

American comedian Rita Rudner said of Thanksgiving:
 
“Most turkeys taste better the day after, my mother’s tasted better the day before.”
   
It’s not known when Rudner first said it, but the joke was included in Rudner’s Naked Beneath My Clothes: Tales of a Revealing Nature (1992).
 
“My mother is such a lousy cook that Thanksgiving at her house is a time of sorrow” is an associated Rudner joke about Thanksgiving cooking.
   
 
Wikipedia: Rita Rudner
Rita Rudner (born September 17, 1953) is an American comedian, writer and actress. Beginning her career as a Broadway dancer, Rita Rudner noticed the lack of female comedians in New York City and turned her stage presence to stand-up comedy where she has flourished for over three decades. Her performance on a variety of HBO specials and numerous appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, helped establish Rudner as one of the premiere female comics to emerge from the comedy boom of the 1980s.
     
Google Books
Naked Beneath My Clothes:
Tales of a Revealing Nature
By Rita Rudner
New York, NY: Penguin Books
1993, ©1992
Pg. ?:
I loved my mother very much, but she was not a good cook. Most turkeys taste better the day after; my mother’s tasted better the day before. In our house Thanksgiving was a time for sorrow.
 
21 December 1992, Philadelphia (PA) Inquirer, “A Book Curmudgeons Would Love,” pg. A15:
Winokur’s latest effort - The Portable Curmudgeon Redux - is enormously successful because irony and humor suffuse every page. In the words of author Paul Fussell, whom he quotes, Winokur finds that there’s “nothing more depressing than optimism.”
(...)
* Rita Rudner: “Most turkeys taste better the day after; my mother’s tasted better the day before.”
 
Google Books
Funny Ladies:
The Best Humor from America’s Funniest Women
By Bill Adler
Kansas City, MO: Andrews McMeel Publishing
2001
Pg. 81:
Most turkeys taste better the day after; my mother’s tasted better the day before. — Rita Rudner
 
Google Books
America in Quotations
Edited by Bahman Dehgan
Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
2003
Pg. 83:
Most turkeys taste better the day after; my mother’s tasted better the day before.—Rita Rudner
 
Google Books
1001 Funniest Things Ever Said
Edited by Steven D. Price
Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot Press
2006
Pg. 72:
Most turkeys taste better the day after,- my mother’s tasted better the day before. — Rita Rudner
 
Google Books
The Quotable Parent:
Advice from the Greatest Minds in History
By Joel Weiss and John Weiss
Familius
2012
Pg. ?:
“Most turkeys taste better the day after, my mother’s tasted better the day before.”
Rita Rudner, 1953–