What Makes Life Worth Living on the Most American of All Holidays
I love Thanksgiving. It’s not just the food that makes this holiday special, although there are few things I find more pleasurable as life begins to recede in the rear view mirror and you realize there are more years behind you than there are ahead. A good meal enjoyed with friends and family is one of those simple pleasures that the older you get, the more you treasure. Why that is, I don’t know. There are many things about getting older that I simply don’t understand. It’s the first time I’ve done it, you know.
But I love this singular American holiday because of the memories of Thanksgivings past that of late have surfaced when I get that first whiff of roasting turkey or I hear the doorbell ring and the first guests arrive for the feast — or even when I just taste Blue Cheese dip on a chip. Remembrances triggered by some still unknown mechanism, the recollections magically stored in some deep recess of my mind unreachable unless called forth by a conscious connection to one of our marvelous human senses. It is memory that adds a layer of warmth and good cheer to the proceedings.
Sometimes bittersweet when recalling parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends who are no longer with us, I can nevertheless bring them back to life in my reverie and see them exactly as they were — laughing, talking, dealing with infants, scolding toddlers, and the small, significant looks they would give their spouse. My mother insisted on inviting every relative within driving distance which made Thanksgiving dinner something akin to eating with Patton’s Third Army. Two turkeys, a literal mountain of dressing, an ocean of jello molds (my favorite being lime jello with pineapple and cottage cheese), four pies (two mince, two pumpkin), and the rest of the repast served up in equally eye popping quantities. The tables groaned in protest at the load.
What never ceased to amaze us was that everything would arrive at the table piping hot. How she could plan it so that food for 30-40 people would all be ready at the same time will remain a mystery I will go to my grave trying to unravel.
Do you Americans eat Turkey at Christmas too or just Thanksgiving? Twice in a month would be a bit much for me, it’s not my favourite bird.
I’m going to order a Goose this year instead for a change, I find them tastier but they’re more expensive.
A lot of Americans eat ham for Christmas Jonesy.
TO: Jonesy55
RE: T-Day vs. Xmas and Feasting
A lot go for ham on Christmas. Not sure just why. Might be something of throwing Christ—and that Christians can eat anything, save other people—in the face of the Hebrews (see Acts 10).
Then again, it might be that pork and turkey are distinctly different but both ‘white meat’.
Some might prefer a good beef roast. And by good I mean well aged. Not this Monfort electro-shock aging technique.
Probably something to do with ‘too much of a good thing’.
If you’re hungry enough, you’ll eat whatever you can get your hands on. Just as a particular team of ruggers I’m aware of.
But, the proverbial question is ‘what to do with the leftovers’?
In our house, we make the leftover turkey into turkey-pot-pie filling or what we call turkey-hash. More likely the latter than the former.
Recipe:
coarsely chopped leftover turkey
coarsely chopped onion
coarsely chopped potato
Roughly equal portions
salt and pepper to taste
Honey-Mustard Sauce:
Dijon mustard
Honey
2 parts mustard to 1 part honey.
Fry up the hash.
Mix the Honey-Mustard Sauce.
Fix a few eggs and bacon, coffee and champagne.
Enjoy,
Chuck(le)
P.S. Add Tabasco Sauce, if you like…..
wonderfully put, Rick!
There’s a New England tradition of having turkey for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, and Easter too. (Or at least so it was in my family until both my brothers married Italian girls, resulting in a certain carefree experimentalism at Christmas and Easter.) For Easter, the European tradition was ham in the north and lamb in the south, because they were the meats available in spring. I don’t believe Christmas has really had a single traditional meat, though I seem to have heard about a goose tradition.
Apparently here in the UK, Goose was more common for Christmas until the 1950s but then Turkeys started being intensively reared and so got cheaper and many families switched.
I use leftover turkey for cold buffets, sanwiches and then make some curried turkey soup with the last bits of meat and stock from the carcass.
Jonesy 55 – goose is delish, but a real pain to cook – and not a huge amount of meat for the effort put in. If you are going with goose for Christmas, make sure you (or whoever is the chef) are in a position that you can essentially babysit it, and make sure you have lots of potatoes and veggies as well. Goose fat makes excellent roast potatoes (and apparently is good for muscular injuries). Good luck and enjoy!
thanks for the tips little banana, when cooking any large bird I think that regular basting is pivotal if you want a nice crispy skin and to avoid dried out breast meat.
Also making a herb/garlic butter and stuffing it underneath the skin of both breast and leg before cooking helps to ensure that the meat remains moist as well as adding flavour.
I think that we’ve only got 6 for Christmas dinner this year so a goose should be plenty, i’ll be seeing all the other relatives over the few days before and afterwards.
You are so right about the roast potatoes, goose fat is the best fat to use I think for crispness. The people of south west France use goose fat a lot in cooking and they live longer than almst anywhere else on earth so it must be a good idea!
White America today celebrates what they call “Thanksgiving”.
The origin of this holiday is rooted in lies and racism and betrayal. The Americas, much like Africa, was a paradise before the arrival of the white man. The white man stole knowledge from the Africans and the white man stole land from the Native Americans.
When the white man arrived in America, he sought conquest and riches to fill his pockets. This is in marked contrast to the African explorers who visited the Americas hundred of years before and who meet peacefully with the indigenous peoples of America.
The Thanksgiving feast that the whites had with Indians was nothing more than a trick to fool the Indians into thinking that the white man wanted peace and harmony. While they ate their food the white man plotted death and destruction.
http://truthfirstnow.blogspot.com
I spent this week, as I spend many weeks, working at the Los Angeles Food Bank as a volunteer. We take the food donated from grocery stores and all the collection boxes around town, inspect and sort it, and box it up to go out to churches and food pantries. It’s hard work, and I don’t do it to appease my conscience or get my picture in the paper.
A lot of people come in to the food bank at this time of year and spend about 2 1/2 hours helping out because it makes them feel good about themselves. While this might seem shallow on the surface, it is important to remember that every little bit helps, and that next to nothing is always better than nothing. there are close to a million hungry people in the Los Angeles area alone, and only a small percentage of them are homeless. Many of them are afraid to ask for help, or pride stands in their way. These people, from all walks, regardless of HOW they arrived at that unfortunate place in their lives, are the reason I do this.
This year, we’ve been inundated with the mantra “Change America Needs”, while the actual meaning of this statement seems open to interpretation. In my mind, this means nothing. It’s like saying “Guns kill people” or “Life is full of contradictions”. A statement that shifts the need for responsible acts onto anything that isn’t a human being is a falsehood. A concept, country, object, or effort is not a human being, and by implying that America needs change, we overlook the actual truth, that Americans need to change.
You can say whatever you want about the white man and the Native American man, but looking back with no expressed interest in looking forward is hardly worth the time it takes to read. Would “Truth First” prefer we didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving at all, or should we start trying to find a cure for something that happened hundreds of years ago? Support the truth by supporting somebody who denies their own name? ha ha…
Liberal values will always make liberal people miserable because they’re purely fantasies. Here in the real world where peace doesn’t exist and money has no conscience or faith in humanity, it is the introverted fear of death that drives the liberal mindset. The inward-focus dictates a preference to hating others because life can never be fair enough, and is thankful for nothing.
Maybe you should spend some time away from your computers; actually stand out in the cold for a day so that somebody you don’t even know might eat for a change… wear yourself out just for the sake of the worn out spirits of innocent children who deserve to learn to read and maybe have a toy to play with… act like there are bigger crisis in this world than your internet connection lagging… then you might actually get it.
Happy Thanksgiving, everybody, (even you, Truth First Now).
Great post Rick. Funny how you post about the closeness of familial ties and it is completely at odds with the drivel spewed from truth first (which is in itself an ironic moniker considering the non substance of its comment). The truth you hit on about family and memories is dead on. Thanks.
“Liberal values will always make liberal people miserable because they’re purely fantasies.”
I am a 4th generation Liberal married to a 2nd generation Liberal – our Thanksgiving family gathering (we swap houses every other year) consists of 20+ family members (grandparents, wives, husbands, brothers, sisters and of course children) and a lot of friends dropping by. We eat, drink, make merry, remember and honor those who passed away and talk politics and social issues. We have been at it for a very long time, we have been Liberals for a very long time – I do not ever remember being miserable because of my core convictions. If things are temporarily not going our way all we have to do is remember all the Liberal achievements in the last 500 years. All I have to do is see the direction the world is headed in and than I know we are on the right side, the side of Progress.
I think you are projecting your own “inward-focus dictates a preference to hating others”, your own misery that stems from the deep hypocrisy your world view must make you feel.