[rollei_list] USian Thanksgiving

I am a bit tardy in posting this and I can only apologize: between a variety of medical tests and shopping and the need to allow my Sulcata Tortoise, Franklin, to enjoy some grazing of our incipient oak-tree crop in the back yard, otherwise knwn as "the Gobi Desert", during a hot-snap and a further need to have dinner today with my wife's niece and her family, I have had three very long and very busy days. The next three days will probably be as taxing. Then a day off, then back for more medical tests.
In any event, we in the US and its possessions celebrate the fourth Thursday in November as a day of thanksgiving. This was a practice first started at Berkeley Plantation on the James River in Virginia in 1619 and later repeated by the Pilgrims in Massachussetts in 1625. The practice then fell into abeyance for three generations but was revived in New England in the early 1700's and became an annual event. It became a national holiday when Abraham Lincoln declared a National Day o Thanksgiving in 1863.
Thanksgiving is a survival of the old European "Feast of Harvest Home", one of the four serious holidays in the late Medieval church calendar. These were linked around the solistices and equinoces -- Christmas, Easter, Midsummer, and Harvest Home. (The older pre-Christian pastoral calendar survived in the "cross-quarter days", forty-five days away from these: Walpurgisnacht/Candelmas, May Day/Beltane, Lammastide, and All Saints'.) The USian growing season is delayed about two months behind that of Europe -- we are much to the south, after all -- and so we ended up celebrating the Feast of Harvest Home two months late as Thanksgiving. (Many USian churches now conduct a "Blessing of the Animals", whatever that may be, around the fall equinox. Heck, I was going to join PETA until I learned that it wasn't, "People Eating Tasty Animals".)
Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried to shift it to the second Thursday with general resistance. He did so to increase the Christmas sales season. Those who appreciate decently mature movies may recall the Bing Crosby vehicle, HOLIDAY INN, the movie which introduced the song, "White Christmas". Every holiday in that movie is introduced by a cartoon bit. The one for Thanksgiving shows the turkey stepping from the fourth to the second to the fourth Thursday on a calendar and shrugging its shoulders in confusion.
In any event, the event is now celebrated by family and friends gathering for a traditional meal based around a roast turkey and mashed potatoes and yams and stuffing, often flushed out with ham and salads. It is all followed up with pumpkin pie and coffee. USians love turkey left-overs but it is absolute necessity that, to fit in, we all bitch and gripe about the need to eat such, and to admit to liking turkey left-overs is equivalent to denying that baseball is the national sport. We went, as I mentioned, to my wife's niece's home for the meal and superb it was. Lots of really great wine (I didn't pay a dime!), lots of good company, lots of good food. (The women got fed first, and grabbed most of the turkey, but, hey, no one ever said life was fair!)
Incidentally, every USian who has every read an Agatha Christie novel knows that the British have five meal-breaks a day: breakfast (with those vile sausages), elevenses, lunch, tea, and dinner. <he grins> There is a cultural divide in the US: in the North and West, we eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In the South and South-West, it is breakfast, dinner, and supper. In the US Army, it was on the Southern pattern until the Civil War but has remained, breakfast, lunch, and dinner since 1862.
Now, a pumpkin is an American variant of the basic gourd. Disgusting as squash can be to eat, pumpkin pie can be a delight. Take some small pumpkins, say, 6" (15cm) across. Boil them. Cut them open and remove the seeds and internal mess. Cut out the meat. Puree this and mix it with spices to taste -- cinnamon is a norm. Some folks add milk or cream or surr cream. Again, let your taste buds be your guide. Place it in a pie shell. Bake it, not long. When the surface begins splitting, take it out.
Cranberry sauce is also a norm for Thanksgiving and Chrismtas. Here in the US, we have "National Public Radio", generally viewed as the medium for geeks, nuts, lefty-loonies, and cultural snobs. For the past quarter-century, there has been an annual discussion on NPR of "Mother Stamberg's Cranberry Relish" recipe. This SOUNDS gross and does come out Pepto-Bismo Pink, but is quite tasty. The recipe can be found at <http://www.npr.org>
Enjoy, guys. I hope that our USian members fed well. And one of the blessings I have to be thankful for, this and every year for the past fifteen, has been this List and its members. Thanks, folks, and be well! 

Marc James Small
Rollei List Owner


msmall@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Cha robh bàs fir gun ghràs fir!

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