On the fourth Thursday of November, 97 percent of all Americans eat turkey. Most of them eat it with other people, accompanied by mashed potatoes,
gravy, stuffing (if you are in the North) or dressing (if you are in the South), cranberry sauce, and miscellaneous other vegetables, often squash,
and that casserole made of green beans with the fried onions on top. Afterwards, most of us in Maine top it off with pie: pumpkin, apple, and among
the diehard traditionalists, mincemeat.
I am utterly confident that if Annie Bunker, who lived in my house and cooked in my kitchen a hundred years ago, waltzed into the dining room
on Thanksgiving, she would immediately recognize what day of the year it was by the spread on the table. In fact, almost any old spirit from 200
years ago could tell it was Thanksgiving just by the menu. In the past few years, though, there has been no Thanksgiving dinner on our dining room
table, because Jamie and I travel off-island to spend the day with our elderly friend Anna, who celebrates her 97th Thanksgiving this year. We join
ourselves to the millions of Americans who go somewhere else to be with family or loved ones.
Until about three years ago, Anna only allowed me to do heavy lifting for her, and the mundane tasks of peeling, chopping, and carrying things. She
was, and largely still is, vice-president in charge of flavor and design, though recently I have been allowed to affect the flavor of the creamed curried
onions and pumpkin pie. She determines how the table will be set and decorated, and I lay things out according to her plan. I am perfectly content to
let Anna decide these things. I will not be eternally blessed with this mother-of-choice, and so she has her way as long as she can have it at all. It
is not that Anna has no confidence in my abilities, it is just that the holiday has a certain pattern that we must adhere to. Most of us carry a Thanksgiving pattern in our memories.
It goes like this: “It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without …….” Fill in the blank. Without brother Mike’s stuffed mushrooms, or some aunt’s version
of apple pie, or that cranberry relish with oranges in it. Personally, I have to see a whole, roasted turkey with gravy. Mashed potatoes are nice, and I
like pumpkin pie, but it wouldn’t be Thanksgiving – etc.
I remember one time I heard about a Thanksgiving dinner assembled by a group of friends in a college town. There were several ethnic groups represented,
and they more or less drew lots to see who would bring what. A Jamaican woman got the turkey, and though she had never had a Thanksgiving dinner, she knew
how to cook turkey. She went to the market, picked out the bird she wanted, and asked the butcher to cut it up for her. At this point in the story,
I audibly gasped, immediately displaying my cultural prejudice. How could you have Thanksgiving without a big glorious golden brown turkey at the
head of the table?
The turkey we had with Annie is a locally raised one. Anne knows the farmer by name, and always asks for a small one, which these days comes in
at around 18 pounds, if we are lucky, or more often about 20 or 22. The number of holiday celebrants varies: sometimes five, sometimes ten or more.
There is always turkey leftover, and turkey sandwiches for lunch on Friday followed by Anna’s turkey hash for supper. She carves off a generous portion
for herself and sends the rest home with me.
I make turkey in gravy or sauce topped with freshly made stuffing and baked in a casserole. I assemble turkey salad for sandwiches, and at long last
turkey soup with lots of celery, onions and rice or orzo.
I never get tired of turkey, though I hear about people who do.
I never tire of Thanksgiving and its work, either. It is not nearly as taxing a
holiday as some of the chatter suggests. The menu can be very simple, what with boiling potatoes, and boiling squash, and boiling onions. Even pie is
easy these days if you turn to ready-made crusts. Stuffing comes pre-made and cranberry sauce comes in cans. And sure it takes hours for a turkey to roast,
but heck, you donÕt have to stand there and watch it the whole time. On Thanksgiving, of all holidays, one is very likely to have lots of extra hands around to pitch
in cooking dinner and washing dishes afterward. And people who really hate to cook can probably finagle an invitation someplace where they can contribute by bringing a
bottle of wine or flowers for the table.
Sure Thanksgiving is work but if you go out to a restaurant dinner, as we see increasingly suggested, where will you get your leftover turkey? Why,
it wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without it.
Sandra Oliver is co-author of Giving Thanks, Thanksgiving Recipes and History, from Pilgrims to Pumpkin Pie (Plimouth Plantation, 2005) with Kathleen Curtin. She lives on Islesboro.