WORLD WAR II THANKSGIVING 
ON THE HOME FRONT : 
NUT-SWEET POTATO CASSEROLE
from : Cooking on a Ration. By Marjorie Mills. Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1943.
from : Thanksgiving "Over There."

4 to 6 sweet potatoes
2/3 cup dark corn or maple syrup
1 orange, sliced
1/2 teaspoon grated orange rind
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
1/3 cup chopped nut meats

Peel sweet potatoes; then slice into a buttered casserole, arranging them in layers with orange slices and chopped nut meats. Dot each layer with butter and season with salt and pepper. Pour syrup over them. Bake in moderate oven for 1 hour. A little water or orange juice may be added if needed. Serves 4 to 6.

From : Cooking on a Ration,
by Marjorie Mills.
Houghton Mifflin, 1943.

SUGAR & SPICE APPLE PIE - 1865
from : An American Family Cook Book, by a Boston Housekeeper.  
New York : Oliver S. Felt, 1865.from : Thanksgiving & the New England Pie.

Take eight russetings, or lemon pippin apples; pare, core, and cut not smaller than quarters; place them as close as possible together into a pie-dish, with four cloves; rub together in a mortar some lemon-peel, with four ounces of good moist sugar, and, if agreeable, add some quince jam; cover it with puff paste; bake it an hour and a quarter.


"…it is best to begin by weighing out the ingredients, sifting the flour, pounding and sifting the sugar and spice, washing the butter, and preparing the fruit.… spice should be pounded in a mortar, except nutmeg, which it is better to grate."

ROAST TURKEY WITH TRUFFLE GRAVY
from : The Book of Good Dinners. By Fannie Merritt Farmer, 1905.
The Great American Turkey Exhibit

ROAST TURKEY : Dress, clean, stuff, and truss an 8-pound turkey. Spread with thick, sour cream, and let stand in ice box overnight. Put on rack in dripping pan, sprinkle with salt, dredge bird and bottom of pan with flour, and lay thin strips fat bacon over breast. Bake 2 and 1/2 hours, basting every 15 minutes with 1/2 cup butter, melted in 1/2 cup boiling water, and, after this is used, with fat in pan. Turn turkey frequently, that it may brown evenly, removing the bacon after the first hour of the cooking.

TRUFFLE GRAVY : To 4 tablespoons fat remaining in pan, add 5 tablespoons flour and pour on, gradually, while stirring constantly, 2 cups stock in which giblets, neck and tips of wings have been cooked. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt, few grains pepper, 1 tablespoon Madeira wine and 2 chopped truffles.


WORLD WAR I THANKSGIVING
ON THE HOMEFRONT :
SUGAR-SAVING MOCK MINCEMEAT 
FILLING FOR PIE

from : Foods That Will Win the War & How to Cook Them.
By C. Houston & Alberta M. Goudiss. World Syndicate Company, 1918.
from : Thanksgiving "Over There."

  "What are you giving so that others may live? Eat less wheat, meat, fats, sugar. 
Send more to Europe or they will starve." 

1 cup cranberries, chopped
1 cup raisins
1 cup corn syrup
2 tablespoons flour mixed with 1/4 cup cold water
2 tablespoons fat

Mix all. Bring to boiling and place in double crust pastry.


CRANBERRY PIE - 1897
from : Hood’s Practical Cook’s Book. 
Lowell, MA : C.I. Hood & Co., 1897.
from : Thanksgiving & the New England Pie.

Line a plate with a plain paste and fill with stewed sweetened cranberries, scatter sugar over the cranberries and cover with strips of paste placed across parallel in two directions to form diamonds.


"Pie is the great American delicacy in the pastry line, and our foreign friends are prone to poke fun at us because of our supposed fondness for it.   It is assumed to be somewhat more of a sectional than a national weakness, however, and the ‘pie line’ is usually located somewhere north and east of New York."




(Recipes compliments of Pilgrim Hall Museum.)

Whether or not you'll be gathering around the Thanksgiving dinner table with your extended family this year, you can honor and celebrate your family history and heritage by including some old family recipes in your holiday meal plan.

Grandma's special stuffing. Aunt Mary's squash casserole. Uncle Fred's gravy.

What comes to mind when you remember Thanksgiving dinners from your childhood? A particular dessert? A yummy appetizer?

My grandmother always made the softest, flakiest homemade rolls; we would eat them by the handful. My mouth waters just thinking about them. 

A few years ago, I hunted down the recipe and made them for Thanksgiving dinner. They weren't quite as good as hers. I probably didn't use enough butter. But nevertheless, my grandmother would have been delighted to know that I cared enough to try and recreate her Thanksgiving masterpiece. 

Those rolls will continue to be a holiday tradition in our home — and maybe one-day in our children's homes.

Once you've identified the favorite family dishes that you'd like to revive, you may need to dig around a bit to find the recipes. In fact, some of them may have never been written down to begin with.

So many of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers carried around entire recipe books in their heads, having learned each dish from grandmothers of their own. But I bet that if you call around to enough aunts, sisters, and cousins — you'll be able to pull together most of the ingredients. (And fill in the blanks through an online search.)

But preserving and passing on this core part of your family history will be well worth the time and effort it might take. Future generations of your family will thank you. 
  

I think that we often struggle — during the  all-too-frantic holiday season — to find ways to show our love and appreciation to friends and family. We shop for meaningful gifts, host parties, bake pies and cookies.

But it's the "personalized attention" that somehow goes missing.

That's what Thanksgiving is for. It's time to slow down and reflect on the blessings in our lives.

This year, I'm vowing to use the spirit of Thanksgiving as inspiration to do some much-needed thank-you card writing — to show my gratitude for those friends and family members who enrich my life. 

Not for anything specific. Just a few notes to say, "Thank you for being who you are — and for all that you've brought to my life."

I'm thinking that a goal of five notes is realistic. Maybe ten. But truly, what better time of the year to send a thank-you note than on Thanksgiving? 

With no presents to open under the tree and no easter eggs to hunt in the yard — Thanksgiving should be a time to just sit around and share.

Should is the operative word. 


The reality is that if we don't consciously make time in our holiday schedule for engaging conversation, it won't happen.

We'll spend the day bustling around with a dish cloth in our hand or an eye glued to the "game" on T.V. and poof!, this expectation-free holiday has come and gone, and we're falling into bed — exhausted.

This holiday season, let's take a cue from the French and learn to linger longer. 

No need to jump up right away and begin the marathon dish-washing session while slower-eating family members are still mingling bits of cranberry sauce with turkey and dressing.

Put on the tea kettle, instead.

This is the perfect time to ask questions of older relatives about Thanksgiving memories from childhood - what they ate, where they ate it, and who was there. What games did they play while the adults prepared the feast? Who cut the turkey? Did someone say the blessing? 

These questions will surely lead to forgotten stories and anecdotes of holidays long-past.

In the end, you'll find out something new about the people in your life. And your kids will learn to appreciate the family history that goes along with turkey and dressing. 

But most importantly, you'll bring a smile, a few laughs, and a sense of honor and appreciation to the ones you love most.

It's not often that your entire extended family gathers around one table to enjoy a meal. Once, maybe twice a year, at best.

So instead of sending the kids away to make noise somewhere else, or jumping up to clear the table ... why not take advantage of this rare opportunity to share some stories? 

In her article, "Pass the Talking Fork," Odds Bokin suggests a Thanksgiving-day twist on the "Talking Stick," a Native American tradition. The stick is passed from hand to hand, or from storyteller to storyteller. Whoever holds the stick (or fork, in this case) also holds the attention of everyone else at the table. 

The person with the fork will share a memory – a personal one or a story about another family member. Childhood stories, Thanksgiving-day memories, Uncle Joe's cigars, a family cross-country adventure, Grandpa's jokes .... whatever comes to mind.

As Bokin points out, children will get a kick out of the stories that their parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles share .... and they'll love it when it's their turn to hold the fork!

And kids (and adults, too) will be put at ease when they realize that "telling a story is simply remembering things and talking about them in their own words." 

Put the coffee on! It may be a late night ....

One of the greatest gifts of my life-story work is that I get to meet really unique, amazing people doing unique, amazing things with their lives. At every age.

This week, I got a call — three calls, to be exact — from a very enthusiastic 97-year-old friend of mine, Gracie. She had read in the town paper that a local celebrity was in need of "extras" for a car-dealership commercial being taped at the community church on Saturday morning. The scene: a mock wedding. If you were interested, you needed to be at the church at 9:30 a.m. dressed in going-to-a-wedding attire. 

I know that Gracie doesn't usually get up and going until mid-morning, at best. But she's not one to "excuse" herself from living because she's too old or too tired. Gracie's almost always game for whatever turns up (or whatever she hunts down). 

She left three separate messages on my voicemail Friday night to be certain that I had all of the event information — as surely I would want to attend.

Well, I didn't. I guess I'm a bit of a wallflower at heart.

But Gracie was there — in her blue dress-suit and red hat. 

She called me when she got home a little before noon. The lilt in her voice was enough to know — she had a blast.

As I look ahead and imagine myself with a headful of gray hair and a shuffle to my step, I can only hope that I will embrace life as enthusiastically as my dear friend. Not only is she open to experience the surprises and opportunities that life may bring — she goes out looking for them.