I attribute this un-American holiday-blindness to the early age at which my parents divorced and I became a vegetarian (actually happened around the same time thinking of it, so I like to think my swearing off chicken was the last straw in their relationship!). Since then, I haven't really had the ping-pong table and marshmallow yam family event that I barely remember but which my dad describes with gusto and a modicum of horror. My mom swore off family events during the Crazy Season (holidays) shortly after, and my Dad's family is diffuse enough that we never celebrated with them. So even my family Thanksgivings haven't exactly followed your traditional family reunion/gorging model.
On years that I was with my mom, we celebrated not celebrating with movies and microwave meals. For me and my dad, it was our small and immaculately elegant ritual to break out the family silver, china and crystal, make some tofu pie and associated accoutrement and have a highly civilized meal shared just between the two of us and perhaps any other Thanksgiving strays. I would wager we spent and still spend at least equal time in the kitchen as we do in the table, as all that preparation doesn't happen on its own, afterall (and I am "sooooo good at chopping vegetables" - right Dad, sure). There is/was a quiet solemnity about the occasion, one that has followed me through most Thanksgiving "celebrations" with or without friends. The stillness of the world, when families take all their hustle and bustle and pack it into individual households...
This year, though, I indulged in the first young-couple holiday with the families trade off and spent Thanksgiving with Andrew and his families (Thursday with his mom and her cousins and Friday with his Dad and the fifty billion members of that side of the family). The meal with his mom was large scale in my eyes, but the feast at his father's family was truly Brobdignagian
. I may have felt a bit like I was eating in that level of Super Mario Bros where everything is giant. First, there were fourteen plus people there crowded around the dining room table. Whole grains, lean proteins, salads, and course divisions were markedly absent and many of the sides seemed based on the stick-of-butter-and-bag-of-sugar foundational approach.
We each had one bread plate and one plate that was the size of a toddler's torso, on which guests were individually served their choice of white or brown meat and a heaping portion of "gratin." Wine flowed freely a few bottles deep. Andrew's mom had graciously made me some squash which stayed near me the whole night. This I clung to like a life preserver, but otherwise there may have been one vegetarian side floating around the family table. After many rounds of stacked and full plates... three desserts were again served one person at a time a la mode. In the living room there were plates of nuts, chips, guacamole, salsa, fried cheese balls, white crackers and cheese and a HUGE thing of punch. With far fewer options and a grazer's stomach, I probably ate 1/4 of the second most abstemious person and still felt ill for a good long time afterwards.
While it was not perhaps the crowning achievement of Adella-dining experiences, it was a fascinating moment of culinary culture shock and not in a bad way necessarily. I suppose Thanksgiving in any incarnation is a harvest meal - a celebration of the bounty of a productive season, by storing up as you head into more barren times. And on the scale of basic human needs food, companionship (hostile or otherwise!) and shelter at least are well-covered during the Thanksgiving holiday tradition. Still, it seems somewhat decontextualized in a country where a sign of need and poverty may well be obesity. I realize that isn't anything that a million people haven't said before, but it still amazes me how many of our traditions and celebrations still center around communal eating.I do think a lot of the Thanksgiving meal is wrapped up in following tradition and that tradition being a connection between ourselves, our families, and our ancestors... and that it may be unsurprising that many older traditions center around the preparation of food. I also enjoy the momentary mindfulness about the food we eat that can come of preparing a meal together, carefully crafting the dining circumstances. In theory, it may really focus us on that essential experience, but in actuality I wonder if it doesn't just turn into a gorge fest for many.
I have to admit that I enjoy the fact that Christmas has carols and traditions like lighting covering the house and tree in in ornaments, each of which have a story and a shared history. Even the myriad church services have a certain hallowed magic about them that goes far beyond your usual every day... Of course there's also the absurd quantities of candy and consumption on Christmas morning, going back to that whole dining-centered celebration thing ... but well. Again I wonder at this point how much it is about the food itself and how much it really is about the emotional significance centered around the food that we only eat on certain occasions and in certain ways and with certain people.
We each had one bread plate and one plate that was the size of a toddler's torso, on which guests were individually served their choice of white or brown meat and a heaping portion of "gratin." Wine flowed freely a few bottles deep. Andrew's mom had graciously made me some squash which stayed near me the whole night. This I clung to like a life preserver, but otherwise there may have been one vegetarian side floating around the family table. After many rounds of stacked and full plates... three desserts were again served one person at a time a la mode. In the living room there were plates of nuts, chips, guacamole, salsa, fried cheese balls, white crackers and cheese and a HUGE thing of punch. With far fewer options and a grazer's stomach, I probably ate 1/4 of the second most abstemious person and still felt ill for a good long time afterwards.
While it was not perhaps the crowning achievement of Adella-dining experiences, it was a fascinating moment of culinary culture shock and not in a bad way necessarily. I suppose Thanksgiving in any incarnation is a harvest meal - a celebration of the bounty of a productive season, by storing up as you head into more barren times. And on the scale of basic human needs food, companionship (hostile or otherwise!) and shelter at least are well-covered during the Thanksgiving holiday tradition. Still, it seems somewhat decontextualized in a country where a sign of need and poverty may well be obesity. I realize that isn't anything that a million people haven't said before, but it still amazes me how many of our traditions and celebrations still center around communal eating.I do think a lot of the Thanksgiving meal is wrapped up in following tradition and that tradition being a connection between ourselves, our families, and our ancestors... and that it may be unsurprising that many older traditions center around the preparation of food. I also enjoy the momentary mindfulness about the food we eat that can come of preparing a meal together, carefully crafting the dining circumstances. In theory, it may really focus us on that essential experience, but in actuality I wonder if it doesn't just turn into a gorge fest for many.
I have to admit that I enjoy the fact that Christmas has carols and traditions like lighting covering the house and tree in in ornaments, each of which have a story and a shared history. Even the myriad church services have a certain hallowed magic about them that goes far beyond your usual every day... Of course there's also the absurd quantities of candy and consumption on Christmas morning, going back to that whole dining-centered celebration thing ... but well. Again I wonder at this point how much it is about the food itself and how much it really is about the emotional significance centered around the food that we only eat on certain occasions and in certain ways and with certain people.
1 comment:
Some years, Thanksgiving is even bigger. A few of my aunts, uncles and cousins on that side weren't present.
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