Thanksgiving Across America - Memories of South Bay Residents By Writer and Contributor NJ Jaeger
Gobble, gobble, gobble, it’s Turkey Time!
Dad bastes the bird so the golden skin shines
Sausage stuffing made the same every year
No oysters, no changes, should ever appear
Tweaked Joy of Cooking recipe— edition old
Mom adds green apples to the cranberry mold
Steaming yams and potatoes ready to mash
Still served in bowls from a hundred years past
Green beans taste best sliced French-style thin
Add roasted almonds, butter, and salt for the win
Dad’s mincemeat pie Mom must prepare
The delight on his face nothing else can compare
Our pumpkin pie stands three layers high
A harvest spectacular everyone will try.
Thanksgiving’s feast and all the camaraderie
Shopping, eating or cleaning, it means the world to me.
Pineapples and Posole
“Mothers start cooking days in advance
If no one is looking some even dance.”
Gloria is a young Hispanic mother from the South Bay whose sweetest memories are the Thanksgivings that included her mother whom she lost at a young age.
She recalls the coziness, closeness and safety she felt when the extended family assembled for Thanksgiving dinner in the living room surrounded by fall-colored decorations and relatives telling humorous stories filled with life lessons.
Cousins, aunts and uncles would be perched on sofas and assorted chairs pulled in from every room. The youngest were seated around the coffee table in front of the couch. Gloria’s sweetest memory is Mom on the couch, and she, sitting at her feet feeling protected and deeply loved.
Not a fan of turkey, her star dish of the day posole, a very special kind her father would make every year on Thanksgiving. A glass of hot pineapple juice, served only at Thanksgiving and Christmas was her other favorite— and her Mom’s recipe is the same one her aunt still makes today. I asked whether it was just juice or if there was anything in it — she smiled and confirmed it was definitely non-alcoholic!
Gloria looked off into the distance and added wistfully, “Thanksgiving seems to pass by too quickly these days. It feels like it’s less important than it used to be. There isn’t as much talk or celebration about it. It is such a shame.”
Turkey, Kids and Foliage Favorites
“No presents to buy, no costumes to wear,
Just feast, feast, feast, sitting easy on a chair. “
I grinned with delight when I heard this RN’s fun childhood tradition, and her mother’s genius plan for keeping kids out from underfoot while she cooked the Thanksgiving meal.
This mother had artfully solved the question: What do you do with a house full of rambunctious kids when you have a feast to prepare? Send them outside to pick pretty fall leaves of course!
The kids eagerly searched the yard hoping to pick the most colorful and beautiful leaves for the dining room mantle — and the smallest most perfect ones to fashion into necklaces for each guest.
Each child took their jobs seriously hoping to outdo the other. They looked and they looked and soon piles of flaming orange, blush, red and golden yellow leaves formed a mound high as their knees. Together they formed a circle and began making the annual mantle lanyard.
Each child wanted to make the most beautiful part of the lanyard- so they chose the best of their leaves and used their little hands to carefully tie the stems together.
Soon two hours and more had passed. The chill air was making their tummy’s rumble, so they peeked in to see what Mom had on the stove cooking. As Mom was busy stirring pots, each smelling more delicious than the next, Mom turned and asked, and “Finished already?” Three little heads quickly disappeared and returned to their task until the final masterpiece was done.
Proudly they carried the lanyard ever so carefully through the doorway, and with their mother’s help hung it across the mantle. Mother smiling clapped her hands softly and exclaimed, “I think this is the prettiest one ever!”
The table was set with all their favorite dishes and the centerpiece decoration was unfurled— a treasured Hallmark Thanksgiving Turkey with all her colorful intricate paper feathers perfectly intact.
The kids washed up and finally — it was time… A glorious turkey first, then steaming dish upon dish came out to the kitchen doors until the entire table was filled to bursting. Mom removed her kitchen apron and took her seat. She looked beautiful in her red dress and pearls, a treasured long ago gift from her parents. Dad lifted the knife to carve… let the feast begin!
Best of Thanksgiving List
Best music theme: Tradition — from the musical Fiddler on the Roof.
Best time saving tip: Buy appetizer charcuterie board for pre-dinner munchies.
Best store bought side dish: Cranberry and Orange Relish bought from Trader Joe’s. Buy extra for freezer and enjoy the tangy goodness for months.
Best store bought dessert: 3-Layer Harvest Pumpkin Pie bought from CoCo’s.
Best table decoration: Old fashioned Horn of Plenty basket filled with fruit and flowers.
Best hostess gift: Ceylon cinnamon in shaker for pie, coffee etc. * Important Note: Saigon cinnamon is toxic, unhealthy and used in many food products.
Favorite Joy of Cooking Recipe
Mom’s Cranberry & Green Apple Mold
Viking Landing
“Lefse to the right, Lutefisk to the left
I really love the stuff, oh really? NO, I jest!”
A beautiful Norwegian who is part of a large Norwegian family from Minnesota, the epicenter of all things Scandinavian in the US, shared that every year her relatives would travel to Illinois to celebrate Thanksgiving at the home of the single relative with enough space to hold them all.
Fifty relatives arrived for the feast dressed in their holiday best, with a few wearing the traditional hand embroidered Bunads. They admired the dozens of homemade Norwegian holiday favorites placed up and down an extremely long table set with exquisite china, sparkling crystal and festive harvest themed flowers before they took their seats.
Every year Thanksgiving subjects tended along the medical vein because the family was filled with radiologists, nurses, university biology professors and a mortician. Delicious holiday dishes were consumed and drinks flowed as the radiologists in the family consulted each other over X-rays illuminated pressed up against the reception area’s many large ornate windows.
The most unusual aspect of this Thanksgiving gathering was not the continuous medical talk at the table, it was the fact that the reception rooms, connected to the main house, were actually part of the host’s expansive mortuary complex. This family of medical professionals rejoiced in the joy of being together on Thanksgiving, in spite what some might call—unorthodox surroundings.
A Light in the Window
“I wish Thanksgiving came more than once a year
The food is better and everyone is of good cheer.”
On Thanksgiving Day in 1948 a lot of hungry relatives patiently waited for their Pittsburgh relatives to arrive via the Pennsylvania turnpike.
Setting out against the backdrop of a record snow year, the family’s 1948 Packard started its journey with Dad at the wheel, mom beside him, and three youngsters in the back.
Dad knew it would be tough driving but white knuckled his family’s way north gamely maneuvering through snow flurries and snow piles.
The kids were having a great adventure watching the flurries, stranded cars, and reveling in the piles of snow flying past the windows in the back seat while the parents stressed out privately in the front.
Time after time the heaviest snow fall obscured visibility forcing them to stop— but they drove on.
In the darkest of night they finally made it into Buffalo — more than six hours late for Thanksgiving dinner. Bright house lights pierced the darkness to let them know they’d reached their destination — a shining beacon of welcome.
As soon as Dad shut off the engine, aunts and uncles along with all the younger relatives rushed out to the car to embrace them. One of the youngest shouted with gusto “Woo Hoo! You made it!”
The weary travelers stepped into the warmest, prettiest, most wonderful Thanksgiving anyone could ever remember: the extended family had graciously waited dinner for them— and what a dinner it was!
This Pennsylvania girl recalls now, decades later, “Never did a feast taste so delicious or the warmth of family time feel better than it did that stormy Thanksgiving we almost missed. Boy was that fun! “
The Hot Dog Thanksgiving
“It takes hours to make, and minutes to eat
I’ve washed up, and want, to get off my feet!”
Young college men, athletic, handsome and brimming with life can always be counted on to eat heartily when they return home for Thanksgiving, some even bring hungry friends along…
What do these broke young men do, when for the first time in their life, the annual gathering of relatives who cook acres and acres of delicious food for them cancels at the eleventh hour and their own parents are out of the country visiting relatives?
Arriving at an empty home, one such pair of Thanksgiving orphans raided the refrigerator to find a single edible protein: hot dogs.
The son and his friend ate the hot dogs as their Thanksgiving meal, and this now infamous year would be forever known as: Hot Dog Thanksgiving. A tradition both young men chose not to continue…
Grapeful for the Memories
Thanksgiving is full of unforgettable moments, food and family traditions, kitchen aromas, beloved recipes, new friends, cooking missteps, hope and fun. It turns out that three out homes in this piece shared some decor in common from Thanksgivings past - a bunch of rubber purple grapes! Found in homes from coast to coast— tucked in a basket, displayed on a mantle or in a horn of plenty. These bunches of grapes were part of my childhood and I wonder if they were a part of yours too?
NJ is a storyteller who has written in many voices for clients in health, education, entertainment, food, sport and politics. Her firm managed publicity for documentary films, book authors and the U.S. Championships. NJ received the Lynn Weaver Award from the Entertainment Professional Publicists Society for her lifelong commitment to philanthropy and community volunteerism.
