It was only a week or two ago that I overheard a teen-aged boy waxing somewhat poetic about the failings of his generation to know and understand the true meaning of Thanksgiving.
“It’s my favorite holiday,” he said. “It’s the only one where you can eat all you want all day.”
Nothing rhymed in his poetics and his grasp of the day’s meaning wasn’t quite firm, yet his failure to mention football I thought showed some promise.
Admittedly, Thanksgiving is an odd holiday, what with its main attractions being gluttony and the promise that politics will not be discussed at the dinner table, especially with Uncle Earl who has a drinking problem that starts at 10am and who makes Attila the Hun seem like a social democrat.
The holiday celebrations actually begin in the weeks before the actual day with American school children learning to trace outlines of their little hands and coloring them in with crayons to make artless renderings of turkeys, which parents proudly display on their refrigerators for exactly one year when it is replaced with a slightly larger version. Each year’s rendering offers substantial proof of the child’s developing artistic skills or the realization that the best the child can hope for is a future as an insurance agent or government statistician.
Part of this history lesson includes an annual pageant of sorts that involves the children portraying Mayflower Pilgrims sitting down at picnic tables with their classmates portraying Wampanoag Indians in 1621 at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts.
At times, the children are asked what they are thankful for. Typically they say stuff like “my kitty,” “Keith,” or “mom’s liposuction.” Every now and then some kid with a highly developed social conscience and a set of parents who sit shiva on each anniversary of the Rosenberg execution, might mention being thankful for the abandonment of public-square stockades that were the primary source of Pilgrim entertainment until HBO began offering original programming.
There are countless flaws of fact in the rich traditions of our Thanksgiving, the first of which being that late November is an unlikely time to have a picnic in the great outdoors on the North Atlantic Coast, especially in 1621. In that time before climate change was widely accepted, it would have been as cold as the inside of a deep-freezer (I really wanted to say, “as cold as a witch’s tit in a brass brassiere,” but I fought the urge) and the prudent and practical Pilgrims would have already stowed the patio furniture, croquet sets and badminton gear in their garages.
That first Thanksgiving, which more likely took place in the windowless basement of the newly erected First Church of Separatist Puritans, was remarkable for its featuring corn-on-the-cob—despite its being served without jalapeno-butter. It was also difficult to eat with wooden teeth.
The history books tend to gloss over the fact that Christopher Columbus, who just happened to be gluten-intolerant, actually came to the New World (about which Antonín Dvořák would later compose a symphony from his summer cottage in Iowa in 1893) in search of the corn he had read about in the very first issue of National Geographic, which also happened to feature a photo-spread of fully-clad aboriginal Siberian women that the courts later found to be neither obscene, provocative nor even moderately interesting, but which nonetheless inspired Hugh Hefner to investigate the concept of “clad.” All of that notwithstanding, the heavily tattooed Chef Chris had envisioned a dish to be made from corn that he called “grits.” The editor of Cookin’ with Chris (Santa Maria Press, Genoa 1497) changed grits to polenta because he rightly sensed that any food that appears in italics tastes better. (In the later translations, grits appears in italics.)
The second Thanksgiving at Plymouth Colony had an altogether different tone—not that I’ve established much of a tone for the first one, other than the corn thing. The Wampanoag Indians, after having introduced corn to white people from England, declared war against the white folks because they were busily trying to convert Indians to Puritanism, which Chief Metacomet (whose surname sounds like an event in outer space) found distasteful. The war went poorly for the Wampanoag and their allies, the Narraganset, however, and those who weren’t killed fled for their lives—they could hear the not-so-distant drumbeat that portended the genocide of Native Americans.
But at this time of year, we don’t need to be all maudlin and political and stuff. We need to talk about that all-American, all-you-can-eat meal that we devour before 63.7% of us hit the Big Box Stores to buy cheap goods from China on a day celebrated as Black Friday, which translates to “the only day an actual store can make money” because Amazon.com has the rest of the year covered. Many people are trampled to death on Black Friday; many others spend the entire night before camping out in mock Styrofoam igloos in parking lots waiting for stores to open. The latter group is in desperate need of long-term psychological help.
Calvin Trillin, the great food writer and commentator for the New Yorker has campaigned for decades to make spaghetti carbonara the national dish for Thanksgiving. I won’t argue, although I would suggest that lasagna, which can be made in advance, would be just as suitable and easier to clean up. For either entrée, a green salad, garlic bread and tiramisu for dessert is all you need.
Geri, my wife, plans our Thanksgiving dinner. Actually, she planned it forty years ago and it hasn’t changed, although we are pretty flexible about the time we actually eat. (Each year it seems to get earlier. I figure that in another four or five years, we should be done with the whole damn thing by noon.) Anyway, three weeks later we have the exact same menu to celebrate Christmas.
I have named our Thanksgiving/Christmas meal in honor of Duke Ellington: “Beige, Beige and Beige.” His 1943 suite actually had two additional colors—black and brown—either of which would lend exciting color to the dinner I am obliged to cook twice each year.
The meal—which requires my using every single pot, pan, and serving dish we own in its preparation and service—starts with a fourteen-pound turkey. I don’t stuff it. I season it with salt and pepper. I toss an orange, stabbed multiple times with a paring knife, into the cavity. I sauté fresh sage in tons of butter, add a cup or so of brandy and pour it over the bird, which is then placed, uncovered, in an oven pre-heated to 450º. Fifteen or twenty minutes later, I reduce the heat to 300º and let it roast for about 20 minutes per pound. I baste the bird on every Bears’ first down.
Cranberries, whether cooked with sugar, orange zest, fresh ginger and white vermouth or simply pushed through a can, provide the only unalterable color to a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, unless you count the Beaujolais that I find to be the perfect wine for this November holiday.
In 1621 the Pilgrims had run out of sugar and so, according to legend, they ate unsweetened cranberries which they found to be both bitter and disgusting. The Natives, who didn’t eat the raw cranberries because they knew better, found the Pilgrims’ retching reactions amusing. The following year there was still no sugar but Ocean Spray had established itself by then in the as-yet-unnamed territory of Wisconsin and Stolichnaya had become the leading vodka import. Though the word cosmopolitan had no meaning whatsoever to modest Puritans desirous only of bathroom privacy stalls, the cocktail of that name quickly became a favorite of those rogue Pilgrims with an affinity for disco and polyester jumpsuits, as well as access to triple sec and fresh lime.
The meal continues: Dressing of bread, with onions, celery and chicken stock (the dark side of beige). Green bean casserole, turned beige with the addition of Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup and Durkee’s onion rings. Baked yams turned beige with a thick covering of marshmallows. Mashed potatoes might fall within the realm of beige. We like sauerkraut, which I’ve been led to believe is a Maryland thing, but as a Bohemian from Chicago I’ll claim it as mine. It too is beige, however. Some people serve roasted chestnuts (beige and certainly not worth the effort). Pearl onions braised in cream (a whiter shade of beige) are a nice addition to the menu. Mashed roasted parsnips and carrots shows that beige can have an orange tint. Gravy? Uh, dark beige.
Nobody I have ever known has had corn at Thanksgiving, despite its historical standing and promising yellow for color contrast, nor peas (green) because we already have green beans (rendered beige, as noted above) and who wants to overdo it on the whole vegetable thing anyway? Salad? Kale? Swiss chard? Broccoli? Oh, give me a break. If you’re going to go that route, you might as well sculpt a turkey out of tofu, or, as we like to say, “soybean curd,” which not only sounds and tastes bad but might contain enough toxins and disruptive plant estrogens that could seriously damage one’s thyroid, possibly by Christmas. Oh, yea!
As an afterthought, it should be noted that Thanksgiving dinner, in all its beige-ness, is disturbingly, yet unapologetically, wet.
I once read President Obama’s White House Thanksgiving menu and it included macaroni and cheese. I’d never heard of such a thing at Thanksgiving, but because I like macaroni and cheese and would enjoy having dinner with the Obamas, it made me wish for an invitation. (Barry: PM me on FB for my #)
In an effort to add some color to my family’s Thanksgiving I make a side dish of Brussels sprouts that has led many a person who claims to hate those bitter little cabbages to say, “Hey, these aren’t too bad.”
Brussels Sprouts
3 cups Brussels sprouts
4 Tbs. pure maple syrup
4 Tbs. apple cider vinegar
1 Tbs. Dijon mustard
1/2 cup walnut oil
Grated nutmeg
Carefully clean and trim Brussels sprouts, discarding discolored leaves. Cut a small “X” in the stem of each sprout, cutting deeply enough to penetrate into the middle of the sprout. Steam the sprouts 15-20 minutes.
Meanwhile, mix the remaining ingredients. Toss with the drained sprouts and serve.
Photography and food styling by Courtney A. Liska
Jackie Dempsey Adams says
Although, I personally would vote for the spaghetti carbonara, I think it would be just too difficult to make at the last minute for 22 people. Therefore, I will go with the lasagna which lends itself to being made in advance. Unfortunately, I really have no vote in the matter as the Thanksgiving menu was written in stone by my family many eons ago. And, yes, it too will be all shades of beige . . . but I just might throw in a brussel sprout or two to alleviate the monotony!
Jim says
That’s why I would opt for the lasagna.