Friday, November 19, 2010

Turkey Talk ala Flashback Friday

Today's Flashback Friday prompt is all about Thanksgiving traditions and memories. Thanksgiving is my favorite of all the holidays and I love everything about the day...the family time, the foods, the season of autumn, and the feeling of thankfulness that this day stirs up inside of me.

My mother has always been an excellent cook and I remember Thanksgiving as a happy day filled with wonderful smells and a delicious meal. My grandparents and other extended family lived mostly on the other side of the country so we typically didn't have relatives sharing the meal with us. And I don't think we ever traveled anywhere for the holiday. Quite often though, we'd share the meal with another family, longtime friends who also had four children like my parents.

One of the things I remember especially looking forward to on Thanksgiving Day was the shrimp cocktail. As a family we did not have a lot of meals in fancy restaurants or even a lot of meals out so many things were considered a treat to us kids that may not be perceived as a treat by kids today. Shrimp cocktail was one of those things. My mother made spicy cocktail sauce and mixed it with the shrimp and then put it all into beautiful long stemmed crystal glasses lined with lettuce. She set each one on a plate on top of our dinner plates and this was our starter. I remember feeling very grown up eating shrimp cocktail this way.


This picture is in a scrapbook my mom made for me. I guess my dad was taking the photo which is why he's missing. You can see the shrimp cocktail on the plate in front of my mom. Fyi-I'm the one on the left with the long hair. Growing up we always dressed for Thanksgiving dinner (no sloppy jeans or t-shirts at the table) and I've carried that tradition on in my own family too. Usually my sisters and I put on dresses and my brother and dad put on collared shirts and dress slacks. My mom also has a knack with flowers and she'd make a pretty arrangement for the table and light candles. It made the day feel extra special.

I have vivid memories of my dad making a production out of carving the turkey. He liked to save the carcass and make something called carcass soup the next day. The name lacks appeal but essentially it was a turkey broth soup and it tasted good. And my sister and I always got to pull the wishbone apart which was a big deal to us as kids.

I prepare a very similar meal to the one my mom made throughout my childhood. I think Thanksgiving dinner is one of those meals nobody in the family wants messed with too much. My mother's cornbread dressing is my favorite thing about the meal and that's the recipe I use. My own family would rebel if I changed up the dressing in any way shape or form. Our favorite sides are corn pudding, creamed onions and in recent years I've added brussel sprouts cooked with pancetta which are totally yummy. Dessert is pumpkin pie and fruit salad and I've added hubs family's angel pie too which I could personally eat in its entirety.

My mom always had a fruit salad as a dessert option on Thanksgiving Day. It consisted of red grapes, diced oranges, diced apples and crushed pineapple and was topped with whipped cream. That may not sound like anything really special but there is something about the combination that is just right. This is another tradition I've continued in my own family because sometimes a bowl of fruit really is better than pie after a big meal. As kids, my sister and I were given the task of pitting the grapes for this salad and I remember so clearly sitting at the kitchen table pitting grapes while my mom got the turkey ready to go in the oven. Nowadays I just look for them already pitted which is kind of a shame.

As a kid I might have watched some of the parade in the morning and we usually had our big meal in the mid-late afternoon. I like to do this in my own house now too because I love to drag it all out for seconds later in the evening. My dad always said grace before we ate and we always took a family picture somehow around the table. In my own family we also like to say some of the things we're especially thankful for each year before we say grace.

Thanksgiving feels like the hush that falls before December barges in with all her lights and colors and sounds and most of all, her expectations. Perhaps that is what I love best about Thanksgiving...it's a day whose only expectations are good food, sweet family, and a heart filled with gratitude for blessings too numerous to count.

17 comments:

  1. Loved the last line the best.That is why we love Thanksgiving so much, it's like Christmas before retailers took over....

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  2. "Perhaps that is what I love best about Thanksgiving...it's a day whose only expectations are good food, sweet family, and a heart filled with gratitude for blessings too numerous to count." So beautifully said. As a child my family went to my Memere's house (she lived with one of my aunts) and all the kids played outside until the food was ready and then we all sat at one really long table with the kids at the end and ate until we all had to be rolled away from the table. We did watch the parade for a bit but mostly we played and talked and laughed. It was fun.

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  3. That was beautifully written. I felt as though I'd taken your hand and stepped back in time with you. I also love your feelings that Thanksgiving is a time with no expectations, except good food, loving family and thanksgiving for all that we have.

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  4. Thank you for sharing your memories. I really enjoyed them.

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  5. I loved, loved, loved hearing your thanksgiving memories! Especially since we didn't have a mom to make it while I was growing up. We ate at a lodge which has it's own quaint memories but not quite the same thing! It's my favorite holiday for the same reasons you mentioned. Canada doesn't celebrate it like the US but I SO want my kids to have the memories. I like how you dressed up, too.

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  6. My mouth dropped open when I read about the fruit salad dessert! I've never known anyone else who did that!

    Fun memories.

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  7. This was nice reading, Joyce. Yes, and I hadn't thought about it, but Thanksgiving is sort of a quiet before the Christmas storm. Even now when we have at least half of Christmas preps and planning done by then Thanksgiving is a welcome break from that.

    Your Thanksgiving sounds like the ones we had here before the kids all left. We did have my widowed mother-in-law and sometimes another in-law or two from out of state.

    At my old home we(at least us kids) didn't even know there were parades on Thanksgiving. That all came with the TV later. Our kids sat with us watching those parades.

    I had to read your 110 questions to see why someone from New Jersey would have grown up with corn bread dressing.

    We do cook a turkey now. But not this year. Our baby will be in London (she's coming home for Christmas, yea!) for Thanksgiving and the other four kids are meeting their mother in Austin.

    We may have a hold-over granddaughter who will be finishing up her last semester (graduates in December) of college work and needs to stay in the area. Her dad too maybe, our youngest son who is single.

    Likely not because of boy friends and lady friends so Mrs. Jim and I are planning to have out turkey at Luby's. I don't know how to carve one, Mrs. Jim always did that. Or her mother.
    ..
    This got long, I'm sorry.
    ..

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  8. what wonderful memories! i like how you have continued some of the traditions from your childhood. thanks for sharing!

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  9. This was nice reading, Joyce. Yes, and I hadn't thought about it, but Thanksgiving is sort of a quiet before the Christmas storm. Even now when we have at least half of Christmas preps and planning done by then Thanksgiving is a welcome break from that.

    Your Thanksgiving sounds like the ones we had here before the kids all left. We did have my widowed mother-in-law and sometimes another in-law or two from out of state.

    At my old home we(at least us kids) didn't even know there were parades on Thanksgiving. That all came with the TV later. Our kids sat with us watching those parades.

    I had to read your 110 questions to see why someone from New Jersey would have grown up with corn bread dressing.

    We do cook a turkey now. But not this year. Our baby will be in London (she's coming home for Christmas, yea!) for Thanksgiving and the other four kids are meeting their mother in Austin.

    We may have a hold-over granddaughter who will be finishing up her last semester (graduates in December) of college work and needs to stay in the area. Her dad too maybe, our youngest son who is single.

    Likely not because of boy friends and lady friends so Mrs. Jim and I are planning to have out turkey at Luby's. I don't know how to carve one, Mrs. Jim always did that. Or her mother.
    ..
    This got long, I'm sorry.
    ..

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  10. What wonderful Thanksgiving memories you have. We didn't do much with Thanksgiving when I was growing up and DD always spent Thanksgiving with her dad as she was growing up, so my only Thanksgiving memories are those of the last 10 years or so ... which makes them all the more precious to me.

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  11. Awww, I enjoyed reading your post. I love the last line of your post.
    I guess we are just a bunch of "pigs" in the south...we eat our fruit salad along with our meal--then we eat dessert! LOL
    PS I love the family photo!

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  12. What great memories- thanks for sharing. Also, I agree that you just can't mess with Thanksgiving recipes. It's the one meal of the year where no one want "innovation."

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  13. What beautiful memories you have and I am sure your daughters will remember your dinners in the same way. Have a wonderful time this year.
    Now I am feeling bad for not wanting to cook this year because I know how much my children love coming here each year. It gets harder when your children have significant others who also have families who don't like to share or take turns each year.

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  14. LOVE the shrimp cocktail story. We didn't eat it growing up (hard to get fresh seafood in the jungle), but I remember that every once in a while when we were in the big city my dad would order it at a restaurant for his meal. I was always fascinated by the glass.

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  15. My family growing up always had a lot of extended family for Thanksgiving, but otherwise it was very much like your Thanksgiving. I like that my kids still dress up a little for that day.
    You have really captured the heart of the holiday in this post.

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  16. Oh, that was such fun to read. Sounds like you made some sweet memories as a child and are continuing those memories with your family. Blessings to you!

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  17. Oh! You were a cute little Joyce, weren't you? :)
    Happy early Thanksgiving!

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