Thanksgiving: Turkey Stuffed with America

A New York Times piece this week reconfirmed the enduring legacy of Thanksgiving, our national holiday.  It is a meal that represents America – warts, stuffing and all.  The particular gravy ladled on top of the turkey this time is the Left/Right politics over the proper narrative to impose on the original meal and just whose view of America it confirms.

This post will sidestep the particular politics of the moment (we know very little about that 16^th century meal, folks; argue away if it makes you feel more American) except to point out that Thanksgiving is a meal that symbolizes America in more ways than most might appreciate.  To elaborate, When Dad Cooks presents a brief history of Thanksgiving.  I will skip the sourcing so that this does not sound like some boring scholar droning on, but if you’re really interested I’ll send you some citations.

If you’re otherwise willing to trust me, then strap in for another exciting episode of “Much of What You’ve Been Told is Not True.”  You might be surprised at how much of what you find in this category relates to food.

Thanksgiving as a national celebration has its roots in slavery, not a Puritan harvest festival.  We were a testy bunch in the years immediately before the Civil War.  A movement began in what was then the West to bring the country back together through a national day of feast.  By the end of the Civil War, President Lincoln thought it a good idea and proclaimed Thanksgiving as a national holiday. 

Unity is a tough thing, however. Despising anything associated with Lincoln, the newly-conquered southern states did not celebrate Thanksgiving during the Reconstruction Era.  It was not until the nation as a whole tired of policing equality in the South – leading to the Jim Crow Era – that the South joined the party.

“Ahhh, but certainly the meal itself is unsullied by the ups and downs of American history,” Uncle Marvin shouts from in front of the TV in the living room. 

Well, not if you’re a Puritan at heart, Marv.  Puritans would see anything with flavor as having been sullied.  All those wonderful spices and herbs in the stuffing, or the cinnamon in your pumpkin pie?  Sorry.  The Puritans would denounce you as spawn of Satan or worse – Catholic.  The meal that we now look to celebrity chefs to spice up for us was a pretty bland affair until the big migration wave of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.  

It was the Italians and many others who brought those ideas about herbs, spices, sausage in the stuffing and such to the American feast.  Many of those people were Catholic, whose ancestors would not have been welcome in the Plymouth Colony.  Owing to the Puritan and WASP inheritance of the meal, these new Catholic Americans did not actually celebrate Thanksgiving at first, viewing it as a Protestant holiday.  The embrace of herbs and such in the meal, in part, marked the arrival of these new cultures into the American mainstream (football had a lot to do with this, too, but this is a food blog; Hook ‘Em Horns).

Most tables this season will groan under the weight of the industrial turkey.  This is a post World War II invention.  The industrial turkey is enormous compared to its natural forebears, stuffed with so many hormones and injected water that its breasts could grace the cover of a men’s magazine (or women’s magazine at the checkout counter; but that, too, is a post for another blog).  The industrial turkey is a symbol of the rise of American industry in the 20^th century.  In so doing, it harkens back to the Puritan ethic of practicality over adornment (meaning it sacrifices flavor for size and profit). 

“Well, maybe so, sugar,” Great Aunt Sadie says while pinching a bruise into your cheek.  “But, American industry also gave us the plastic pop-up thingy that lets us know when our turkey is done.”

Sorry Sadie.  That ridiculous plastic pop-up thingy inserted into that enormous breast has nothing to do with flavor and is only tangentially related to when the bird is done.  It has everything to do with avoiding lawsuits over bacteria from turkeys raised in cages jam-packed with other turkeys.  If you rely on it, you can be sure that the bacteria are long dead.  They were destroyed along with all the moisture in the breast.  No flavor.  No lawsuits.

America’s litigious nature is also represented in the turkey.

In the 21^st century, America is attempting to recover some of its food heritage, picking and choosing among things that have been industrialized, things that are local, things they grow themselves and the restaurant open on Thanksgiving that promises all these things.  So, it is only fitting that many other tables will boast an heirloom bird, or a non-industrialized range-fed organic bird, or a bird that was nurtured in a subdivision in violation of the homeowner association rules. 

The American spirit of rebellion lives on in small ways today.

So, as the Times reported, it is only fitting that the current conflagration of socialism versus capitalism should have a seat at the Thanksgiving table.  American history has always been condensed and stuffed into a turkey.  Would you like some sweet potatoes with that? 

It simply reminds us that this day endures as a truly American feast, something you've been told that is truer than you might have known.

Happy Thanksgiving.

A Fish, A Father and an Avocado Walk Into a Kitchen…

Husbands know that guilt is a powerful motivator.  Putting down toilet seats is simply not in our DNA.  Those of us who do it…do it to avoid the guilt.

Likewise holding purses, not playing basketball with rolled up dirty socks, saying
“gosh darn it” when the quarterback fumbles, pretending to watch the movie “Terms of Endearment” (husbands call it “Terms of Endurance”), voluntarily vacuuming the carpet, and stating an unqualified preference for anything that seems important to our women as if it were equally important to us (see the above mention of “Terms of Endearment”).

For good or ill, guilt and food go together these days.  How far did it travel to your plate?  Is it on a list somewhere?  Did it ever have a face or a mother?  What was its quality of life while living?  Did you use artificial fertilizer to grow it?  Have you considered the starving children in (insert your favorite developing nation; and, yes, if it was good enough for my parents to ask me it’s good enough to harass my own kids about from time to time)?

I want to be clear that many of these questions are good questions.  They can be a bit overwhelming at times, though.  I respect anyone who goes further, but for my family we focus on a saying we heard from our favorite priest once upon a time:  “Do the good that presents itself to be done.” 

Which, of course, leads me to the subject of…fish.

A lot of food guilt is geared toward fish.  And for good reasons.  I wish, however, to side-step most of those issues (NOT that there’s anything wrong with that!).  Tilapia is a fish generally considered to be part of the “good that presents itself to be done” for those of us inclined toward fish.  It is a vegetarian fish that is a highly efficient protein factory, converting something like ¾ of a pound of its own caloric intake into a full pound of protein, though please do not quote those numbers (blast it, Jim, I’m a doctor not a marine biologist).  As you can see in the above picture, store-bought fillets also tend to look like a first baseman’s mitt, but that’s not important right now.

We eat a lot of tilapia around this house.  For those of you who know tilapia, however, you know that as a basic whitefish, it lacks an assertive flavor of its own.  It offers nice texture, though, and with a little thought can be a canvas upon which we can paint a (relatively) guilt-free meal.

On this particular night (as with most nights), I looked around at what I had on hand to add some flavor to the tilapia.  One avocado lurked in the fruit drawer.  I don’t know about your house, but one is not enough to make guacamole around here (a future post, no doubt; making guacamole in my house is like walking into a pit bull convention with a necklace of red meat and poodles).   

But, it is enough for a quick avocado dressing that can paint baked tilapia before serving.  Since I know everyone loves avocado (see guacamole reference), I figured I had an answer.

There is no magic here.  Bake the tilapia for about 15 minutes or so (I had thin pieces, so 15 minutes worked, but you probably do not want to go over 20 minutes regardless; test the thickest parts with a fork to check doneness, when it flakes it’s done).  Before serving, spread it with the avocado dressing.

Avocado Dressing

Ingredients:

~1/2 a good-size pear-shaped ripe avocado

3 cloves of garlic

~ 2 tbsp of canola oil

~ ¼ cup of parsley leaves

Juice of half a lime (added in steps, you can always add more)

A splash of sherry vinegar

A few splashes of half & half, maybe 1/4 of a cup total

Whir it all up in a food processor.  Paint or dob it on the baked tilapia and serve.  Guilt free.  Then go mow the lawn before “Terms of Endearment” goes into the machine.

End of an Era

It has been a fiendishly long time since I have posted, for which I apologize.  There have been good meals to be sure, but alas they have not made their way to the blog.  I apologize for the absence and promise to do better as we approach the holidays.

Along the way, I want to welcome Patrick to the When Dad Cooks community.  Please check out his blog,  Duck Fat and Politics when you get a chance.  It's great fun and those of you who lurk in Minnesota (and I know who you are) might see local fare you recognize.

Anyway, Halloween came and went.  It is a vaguely food oriented holiday so a fitting topic here.  Halloween has been a big deal in this house since the kids were old enough to play dress up.  They have played many roles and I'll remember fondly so many of them.  A Disney princess.  Bob the Builder.  A black cat.  Spiderman.  Padme from Star Wars.  Inspector Clouseau.

And on and on.

My kids are teens or very nearly so now.  Trick or treating is not quite what it used to be.

The high school girl was not interested and made that known early with a simple "No" to the question.  She then went back to her homework.

Her younger brother tried to arrange something with a neighborhood buddy but it didn't work out.  He said his Halloween would be spent giving out candy at the door.  That would be sufficient.

Then, at about 7:30, after the first wave had come to the door, he came downstairs in an updated version of his Phantom of the Opera costume from a few years ago.  The mask still fit because we had made it from a hockey mask at the time.  The cape was nowhere near as long on him, but it worked.

"I just need some candy," he said.

Yes.  Right.  Nothing else besides that.  It's a sweet tooth thing, Dad.  Get over it.

"OK," BMW said, excited for the first time that evening.  "Get me some chocolate.  I don't care about the rest.  Get me some chocolate or you're not going to college."

My wife can be subtle some times.  This was not one of those times.

My son and I wandered the neighborhood for about a half hour.  We talked about Halloweens past and how a couple of the houses seemed scarier in previous years.  He had various theories about houses that would give good candy and conducted experiments against those hypotheses.

Eventually, he felt assured that his college education was secure and we returned home.  BMW and my daughter were sitting on the front porch with a big bowl of candy and study guide sheets for a test in some subject or another.  

The candy was easily divided and we settled in to watch a football game on TV.

Happy Halloween.