Home » Discussion Forums » Blog Post Discussion » Thanksgiving
| | | |
| Re: Thanksgiving [message #36819 is a reply to message #36815 ] |
Tue, 23 November 2010 23:02   |
EMoon
Messages: 665
Registered: March 2009 |
Senior Member |
|
|
Mapping programs...ugh. I have just explained to someone from California, who believes in Googlemaps, that in our part of Texas (and especially in our town) it's not all that reliable. Follow MY directions, I said firmly. The movers who came for our son's furniture used Googlemaps instead of my directions and had to call me to ask where they were.
MapQuest is as bad, at least around here. It once tried to send me from here (north of Austin) to a church camp near Navasota (north of a line between Austin and Houston) by way of San Antonio (which, for those not in Texas, is south and west of Austin. The additional 80 miles to San Antonio is all in the wrong direction.) You can in fact drive 130 miles to San Antonio, and then 200 miles east and north to Houston, and then west and north of Houston to Navasota...but it's a lot shorter to drive 50 miles to Austin, then straight toward Houston, cutting off to the north at the right road.
As for Thanksgiving...it's when the duck is ready to be cooked. Irate Pilgrim Fathers will not be marching on you with muskets and pikes and threatening to put you in the stocks with a scarlet T pinned to your dress.
E
|
|
| | |
| Re: Thanksgiving [message #36823 is a reply to message #36815 ] |
Wed, 24 November 2010 08:59 |
 Jeanne Marie
Messages: 320
Registered: October 2008
Location: Kansas City |
Senior Member |
|
|
I started a thread over on PWYF about Thanksgiving dinners because my husband is not a turkey person. I come from a steadfastly turkey-dressing-sweet potatoes-chocolate pie kind of family, but his family rebelled when he was about 12, and have done everything BUT turkey ever since.
After much debate and hand-wringing, we've decide on rib-eye steaks. With mashed potatoes, baked sweet potatoes, baked acorn squash, green beans, cheddar biscuits, and my fvorite cranberry-ginger sauce.*
*well, a reasonable facisimile thereof. I can't find my recipe (???), so I jsut finished a websearch of cranberry-ginger-orange concoctions,a nd found something that sounds close on epicurious. We shall see!
Smiles,
JM
|
|
|
| Re: Thanksgiving [message #36825 is a reply to message #36815 ] |
Wed, 24 November 2010 12:01 |
PamAdams
Messages: 248
Registered: May 2010 |
Senior Member |
|
|
There can never be too much Thanksgiving. Mine will be a restaurant meal, so I have a turkey and stuffing combo tucked safely away in the freezer, in order to have leftovers for the weekend. (Thanks, Trader Joes!)
Do the hellhounds eat duck or does it upset their digestions? Mine, luckily, can and will eat anything, up to and including brussels sprouts. I had to laugh this morning. It was cold (cold for Southern California), and the big dog waited to get up until I was actually on the way to let her out. The small and very old dog remained firmly curled up and She waited until the big dog came back in, at which time she jumped out of her bed, grabbed a treat, and went immediately back to bed.
|
|
| | | | | |
| Re: Thanksgiving [message #36832 is a reply to message #36827 ] |
Wed, 24 November 2010 20:43 |
katinseattle
Messages: 374
Registered: November 2008
Location: Seattle |
Senior Member |
|
|
| CathyR wrote on Wed, 24 November 2010 11:16 |
| katinseattle wrote on Wed, 24 November 2010 04:53 |
Tell me, does a British Thanksgiving include dressing with the duck? Yams or sweet potatoes? Pumpkin pie?
|
We don't do Thanksgiving here in Britain (unless you are married to an American, of course!) 
|
I was hoping Robin would explain how she adapted the American custom to British living.
| Quote: |
What do you eat at Christmas? Turkey again?
|
I don't think the Christmas meal is as traditional as other holidays. I think I fixed ham sometimes, occasionally Cornish game hens, whatever my family liked and made the day seem festive. When my daughter got to the rebellious stage, she demanded to do the cooking. I gave in gracefully, laughing gleefully inside. She made lasagna for Christmas one year; beef stroganoff, another.
|
|
|
| Re: Thanksgiving [message #36837 is a reply to message #36830 ] |
Thu, 25 November 2010 02:54 |
CathyR
Messages: 575
Registered: July 2009
Location: NW England |
Senior Member |
|
|
| Black Bear wrote on Thu, 25 November 2010 00:17 |
You may be the first English person I've known who's expressed a positive opinion on pumpkin, CathyR! Pumpkin pie and pumpkin butter have never been a hit with any of my British friends, despite my efforts at conversion...
|
I love pumpkin - soup, baked, roast, any which way. I tried pumpkin pie many years ago when on holiday in Vermont during the Fall, and loved it. Pumpkin butter I must confess I have never heard of. More info, please!
Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.
|
|
|
 Re: Thanksgiving [message #36839 is a reply to message #36815 ] |
Thu, 25 November 2010 06:18 |
Xyzzy
Messages: 6
Registered: November 2010
Location: Redwood Empire, Californi... |
Junior Member |
|
|
| Quote: |
HA HA HA HAVE I SAID KILL GOOGLE MAPS? KILL GOOGLE MAPS. It doesn’t look anything like that on the ground, guys, and there’s no symbol for ‘long invisible driveway’.
|
It's hard to get me laughing out loud, but this certainly did it!
Similar directions didn't warn me that a certain "community" is actually a winding one-lane road hugging a steep hillside, with no guardrail, streetlights, or signs, just endless trees & treetops on one side and periodic glimpses of the road ahead. Every so often, I'd meet a car going the other way, and one of us had to back onto a ledge to let the other pass... Not an 'adventure' I recommend trying in an unfamiliar car that handles like an El Camino. 
Robin (and everyone else), I hope you had/have a great Thanksgiving!
|
|
|
| Re: Thanksgiving [message #36842 is a reply to message #36827 ] |
Thu, 25 November 2010 10:27 |
 |
shalea
Messages: 781
Registered: October 2008
Location: Raleigh, North Carolina, ... |
Senior Member |
|
|
| CathyR wrote on Wed, 24 November 2010 14:16 |
...What do you eat at Christmas? Turkey again?
|
We're actually having duck for Thanksgiving (not at all traditional, but hubby prefers it and I promised him I'd have a go at cooking one), but Christmas doesn't have quite the same degree of traditional menu.* My family has had in the past ham, turkey, prime rib, lamb - basically some sort of "special" meat dish.
* For the non-Americans - you may or may not be aware that the "traditional" US Thanksgiving menu is sort-of kind-of based on a meal that the original colonists to this country might have shared with the Native Americans, hence the North American-specific turkey and pumpkin emphasis. Some sort of stuffing is usually included, but what actually goes into it (and in fact, whether or not it's actually cooked inside the turkey or separately) is generally heavily based in family-specific tradition (and can be the subject of much conflict when two different traditions combine).
|
|
|
| Re: Thanksgiving [message #36845 is a reply to message #36842 ] |
Thu, 25 November 2010 10:58 |
 |
Maren
Messages: 1332
Registered: October 2008
Location: Louisiana |
Senior Member
[Moderator] |
|
|
| shalea wrote on Thu, 25 November 2010 10:27 |
* For the non-Americans - you may or may not be aware that the "traditional" US Thanksgiving menu is sort-of kind-of based on a meal that the original colonists to this country might have shared with the Native Americans, hence the North American-specific turkey and pumpkin emphasis.
|
I just happened to watch the first part of the PBS series We Shall Remain last weekend. They seemed pretty certain that the feast did happen...but it was venison and oysters. And lots of corn.
ETA: I love stuffing. I'm not sure how widespread the kind of stuffing we're talking about is in other parts of the world*, but any of you who've never tried something like this really should do so now. As Shalea says, there are many different variations--cornbread stuffing is common in the South, while other recipes may include sausage, oysters, fruit (the kind my aunt made for today has raisins and green apples), mushrooms, chestnuts, etc. I prefer regular bread in cubes, not crumbs, but my one absolute requirement is sage.
*When I was a grad student in France, we threw a Thanksgiving party for our professors and the undergrads' host families. We were able to get turkey and mashed potatoes catered, but the stuffing we had to make ourselves. Maybe it's more common in English-speaking countries, though; after all, it came here from somewhere, right? I don't think any Native American tribe was making bread as we know it before colonization.
[Updated on: Thu, 25 November 2010 11:23]
|
|
|
| Re: Thanksgiving [message #36846 is a reply to message #36845 ] |
Thu, 25 November 2010 11:24 |
 |
Black Bear
Messages: 3216
Registered: September 2008
Location: Indianapolis, IN USA |
Senior Member
[Moderator] |
|
|
We always have baked oysters at Thanksgiving, which may seem odd since our family's been firmly lodged inland since the 1700s. Glad to know this is historically supportable, at least!
Pumpkin butter's a type of fruit butter--essentially fruit cooked down and slightly sweetened, with the spreadable consistency of butter (doesn't involve addition of gelatin, like jellies and jams.) Apple butter's the most common around here, and that's made with the addition of spices like cloves and cinnamon. Pumpkin butter is much the same, with pie spices added to cooked and sweetened pumpkin to make a spreadable condiment. I brought some over as a housegift to some friends in London one year, and they reacted with "Oh thank you so much, what is it? Errmmmm... that sounds... lovely. (barely concealed shudder) Yes, we'll save that for... a special occasion."
"The time is always right to do what's right."--MLK Jr.
|
|
| | | | | | | | | | |
| Re: Thanksgiving [message #36873 is a reply to message #36854 ] |
Thu, 25 November 2010 22:11 |
librarykat
Messages: 566
Registered: October 2008
Location: Redneck Riviera |
Senior Member |
|
|
| Black Bear wrote on Thu, 25 November 2010 15:41 |
You absolutely should, CathyR--that's one absolute rule of Thanksgiving, guests are always welcome!
Potato salad has mustard and vinegar and bacon in it. No mayonnaise, and NO pickle.
|
That seems to be what we call German potato salad.
I make a potato salad that's different from just about anything else I've seen - it includes lots of chopped veggies: bell pepper, cucumber, celery, tomato, green onion, and a vinaigrette dressing.
|
|
|
| Re: Thanksgiving [message #36874 is a reply to message #36873 ] |
Thu, 25 November 2010 22:26 |
|
|
I once had a delightful potato salad that was one-of-a-kind. It was the result of a wild food foraging expedition in the Krum woods on the Swarthmore College campus. We had violet leaves, and spring-beauty tubers (there were LOTS of spring beauties) and dandelion greens and wild onions, and I forget what else (this was a-many years ago). But there was not enough to make much of a feed for the group. So we boiled and chopped some potatoes, and used yogurt to tie it all together, and strewed the top with violet and dandelion flowers. It was gorgeous, and as well as I recall, tasted pretty good too.
|
|
| |
| Re: Thanksgiving [message #36877 is a reply to message #36815 ] |
Fri, 26 November 2010 00:11 |
ravenandrose
Messages: 43
Registered: May 2010
Location: Oregon |
Member |
|
|
Yes, yes, dill pickles belong in potato salad.
Corn pudding sounds good.
The wild food potato salad sounds fascinating My MIL made biscuits with cattail pollen last spring. My kiddos are always munching on miners lettuce and mint and grape leaves and...
We always have pumpkin pie, and mystery pudding which my sister usually makes (which is a butter and walnut crust with layers of sweetened cream cheese, vanilla pudding, chocolate pudding, and whipped cream). This year my sister made a pumpkin cheesecake as well and it was sooo yummy! I made a vegan, gluten-free pumpkin pie and homemade cranberry sauce. We had a sweet potato dessert also which has insane amounts of butter in it. We had the usual turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and peas...
|
|
| |
| Re: Thanksgiving [message #36944 is a reply to message #36845 ] |
Sun, 28 November 2010 13:08 |
claning
Messages: 266
Registered: February 2010
Location: California |
Senior Member |
|
|
| Maren wrote on Thu, 25 November 2010 10:58 |
I just happened to watch the first part of the PBS series We Shall Remain last weekend. They seemed pretty certain that the feast did happen...but it was venison and oysters. And lots of corn.
|
Thanksgiving as we know it today seems to have originated in 1863 with a proclamation by Abraham Lincoln. The "Some common beliefs" essay in the Thanksgiving section at Snopes.com (http://snopes.com/holidays/thanksgiving/beliefs.asp) makes interesting reading.
I strongly suspect that the traditional Thanksgiving menu we're discussing may actually have originated in the 19th or 20th century. It's interesting that it strongly emphasizes foods that originated in the New World: turkey, pumpkin, cranberries, potatoes/sweet potatoes, green beans, corn...
I highly recommend a visit to Plimoth Plantation for anyone who happens to pass through Massachusetts (unfortunately it's not very close to Boston). They go to great lengths to make their history accurate, and their guides pretend to be people from the 1620s -- each actor takes the name and studies the life of a particular real person from the original settlement.
They have not only the Anglo settlers, but a large section on the local Native Americans. One thing that stuck in my mind from my last visit was hearing one of the Native American guides explain something often overlooked: according to the original sources (and IIRC), there were not just a few token Native Americans at the first Thanksgiving, but about 90 of them. All men. And the Wampanoag men (the local tribe) tend to be tall and built like modern football players. Must have been intimidating: we can be thankful they were friendly!
[Updated on: Sun, 28 November 2010 13:13]
O Chris Laning <claning@igc.org> - Davis, California
+
|
|
|
| Re: Thanksgiving [message #36953 is a reply to message #36815 ] |
Sun, 28 November 2010 17:02 |
skating librarian
Messages: 571
Registered: October 2008
Location: Vermont |
Senior Member |
|
|
Funny that the Thanksgiving discussion also mentions potato salad.
My Mother, a very tradition bound type, used to a New England/ Pa. Dutch version of Thanksgiving, was absolutely aghast to hear that a "new" family member from a relatively recently arrived Russian background, absolutely had to have potato salad at Thanksgiving. Whether there were pickles, bacon, or what in it I don't know. We never shared that holiday.
I'm just realizing that the dinner I had was missing the relish tray (celery, carrots, olives, etc.) who would have thought that I could miss that!
"Winning a war is like winning an earthquake" Jeanette Rankin
|
|
|
| Re: Thanksgiving [message #37083 is a reply to message #36815 ] |
Wed, 01 December 2010 09:27 |
 |
equus_peduus
Messages: 437
Registered: September 2009
Location: France |
Senior Member |
|
|
I am *so glad* that there are people who won't stare at me strangely when I say that potato salad requires pickles.
And for those of you who hate Google Maps... I know somebody who works for Google, and used to work in the maps department and he says, REPORT ANY ERRORS. This goes for both locations that aren't actually where the Google Map says it is, as well as directions that take you to interesting places. They can't improve the maps if nobody tells them there's something wrong. There is a 'report error' link on every map/directions somewhere. An actual human has to review each error reported, so it can take weeks or months for the map to update, but it will happen. And once you've reported the error on how to get to your house (and it updates), you can stop telling people not to do what many people will want to do, which is use an online map service (though you may have to specifically say, use Google Maps, not Yahoo Maps or MapQuest or whatever. Though I expect those services also have error reporting mechanisms.)
|
|
| |
| |
  |
Goto Forum:
Current Time: Sat May 25 06:45:31 EDT 2013
Total time taken to generate the page: 0.04736 seconds |
Members
Search
Help
Register
Login
Home
