Cornucopia: Thanksgiving Trials and Traditions

Thanksgiving Trials and Traditions

By Kate Chamberlin

   Well, the evening air was perfect for all the little trick-or-treaters, but, by golly, there’s frost on the pumpkin now!

   The air is definitely autumnal with a nip on your nose and a fragrance of wood-stoves and ripening grapes. The crops, for better or worse, are harvested and, before we batten down the shutters for a long winter, it’s time to gather our family and friends for Thanksgiving.

   Most of us are familiar with the stories of the first Thanksgiving, but what about our own personal traditions?  Does Thanksgiving have as much meaning for us now as it did in the Pilgrims’ time?  Or even 50 years ago?

   I asked a man of nearly 90 what was it like when he was a boy.  At first he told me he was too young to remember, but then he confessed: “We always had chicken instead of turkey for Thanksgiving.  I always felt badly about that.”

   “However, now that I’ve been having turkey for more years than I can count, I find I don’t like turkey!”

   Most people I asked said they’d had the usual large family gathering of 25 to 30 aunts, uncles, cousins and tag-alongs. Dinner would be of chicken or turkey with squashes, dressings, gravy, vegetables and a variety of pies.

   One Italian octogenarian said she’d fixed all those plus lasagna and numerous other Italian dishes for her family of 35 members.

   In my youth, Thanksgiving meant I wouldn’t get to sleep in my own bed!  If we went to my grandmother’s in Fairfield, CT near Long Island Sound, I’d have to sleep on a bed in the cold back bedroom.  For some reason, that bed always had beach sand in-between the sheet–even in winter!

   If everyone came to my mother’s house, I’d have to sleep on a cot down in the basement near the smelly oil furnace, so my mother’s sister and her husband could sleep in my double bed.  My cousins got the couches in the den.

   My happiest memory of Thanksgiving occurred when I was an adult with young adult children.

   The evening before Thanksgiving, we were all in the kitchen filling our home with wonderful aromas of baking  pies and breads, tearing up with the chopping  of onions, friendly kibitzing, and feeling good about being together. 

   The next day, Dave did the turkey and I made the gravy. 

   I figured I’d been doing the Thanksgiving dinner so many years that, even though I’d lost a lot of vision,  I’d still be able to make the gravy.

   While Dave and our children scurried around getting the rest of the dinner ready, I set about to make the gravy.

   I  used cornstarch instead of flour to thicken the turkey juices left in the bottom of the roaster pan. It was simple enough for me to put the cornstarch in a small jar.  I  added water and shook. It dissolved quickly with no lumps, so, I poured it into the roaster pan.

   When I could hear it boiling, I added enough water to make gravy for dinner and the left-overs.

   I stirred and stirred.  It didn’t thicken.

   I added more cornstarch  straight from the box. I stirred and stirred.  It still didn’t thicken.

   Eventually, I tasted it.

   It was sweet! I had been adding confectioner’s sugar instead of cornstarch!

   Now days, I have more braille labels on things, so, I know I won’t repeat that mistake.

   This Thanksgiving might actually be a lot of fun.  I don’t feel the need to control everything any more. Marion knows how to make the pumpkin pie, Paul makes the Pecan pie, Will makes a caramelized flan and Dave roasts the turkey.

   I guess the only thing I really need to do is to train my daughter-in-law-to-be how to make perfect lumpy mashed potatoes to go with my perfect frosting, er, I mean gravy.

   I also like what my friend and her family does.  She, along with her husband and children ages 13 and 9, volunteer on Thanksgiving Day at a Shelter for Homeless.  They bake and serve almost all day and return to their own home extremely tired and much more appreciative of what they have.

   The annual tradition the Walworth Methodist Church has is to invite members of our community that don’t have family in the area or aren’t able to cook for themselves, or are just alone and want company for the holiday to join them in the Fellowship Room for Thanksgiving dinner.

   Even in the bleakest of times, there is always something to be thankful for.  Some years you might have to look a little (or a lot)deeper than other years, but when people reach out to others, we all can be thankful.

(NOTE: This article is a cabal of my ‘Cornucopia’ weekly columns published in the Wayne County STAR Newspaper, November, 1996 and 1997.)