St Hd: Over The Back Fence

You don’t need a calendar to know what holiday comes in late November. Just look in my current women’s magazine, and yes, even the daily paper, and you will find hints, recipes, and directions for cooking the Thanksgiving turkey. There are endless suggestions about stuffing the bird, and careful instructions about cooking, carving, and serving the traditional turkey.

Not to be forgotten are the sauces, vegetables, and other dishes which are part of the festive meal. Many of them are traditional with individual families and with holiday preparations country wide. With giblet gravy or plain gravy, there is usually a mountain of mashed potatoes, laced with generous gobs of butter or chopped chives and whipped with flavor both instead of milk.

Many families include yams or sweet potatoes for the family dinner. The tradition widens when it comes to vegetables. In tune with the season, our ancestors used newly harvested turnips and squash and a bowl of boiled or creamed onions. Today it is common to find servings of corn, peas, beans, succotash, carrots, or parsnips on the table.

After the vegetables, traditions step in for the accompanying condiments. For a completely unknown reason, my mother always made a huge bowl full of chopped cabbage salad. It was what she brought to the dinner, long after someone else was in charge of the holiday meal. I tried and tried but could never achieve the same taste and consistency of that dish. The long, narrow dish of stuffed celery was ever present, as was a colorful dish of cranberry sauce. My grandmother served a special “Pear Harlequin” she made from garden produce and it was always in the same cut glass bowl. My aunt contributed a kind of spicy corn relish, and sometimes she brought a dish – casserole style – of cauliflower with delicious rich sauce.

Then came dessert. Oh My! Uncle George, a dignified and proper model of a gentleman, always brought two pecan pies which he made himself. My mother brought lemon meringue pie, and my grandmother was ready with slabs of cheese to go with her apple pies. Another aunt brought her homemade mincemeat pie – one of the old traditions I adopted when I learned to make homemade mincemeat.

Two or three of the ladies in the family brought “after dinner” treats – a dish of fudge, candied ginger, grandfather’s homemade molasses candy, and once, a dish of glazed grapes. I often have wondered where those grapes came from – they were not common to the market, in those early days. Bowls of native nuts with a nutcracker were on the side table, and one year small, delicious sweet tangerines were passed around – a gift from a relative in Florida, and rare at the time when shipping food was more of a risk than a reality.

After all appetites had been fully satisfied, the singing began. That hour of song and laughter is one of my best memories. It always included a rousing rendition of “Tenting Tonight on the Old Campground,” with great grandfather Hall and his brother Ezra Hall of Newtown contributing their deep, throaty voices to the old song. Gramp was a Civil War veteran and had two or three other songs of that era which we younger folks didn’t know. A few well-loved hymns were always included, and several patriotic songs found their way into the impromptu concert. It is a tradition to be highly recommended to any family gathered together for a celebration.

If you aren’t hungry about now, you should be! Each family has other traditions to be brought out at holiday time. Keep them and pass them on to the younger generations – it is part of our history.

The column last week ended with words by Mrs Patricia Campbell in a letter to George Bernard Shaw in 1912.

Who said “It takes a heap of living in a house to make it a home”?