The first time I made a Thanksgiving dinner for Bob I made a huge mistake. I experimented with rice stuffing.Well, you'd think I had commited treason. That was definitely NOT his mother's stuffing.
Monique Doyle Spencer has a great piece in today's Boston Globe about this exact topic. It's called "Please don't pass the stuffing" and I'm not surprised it's quickly become the most emailed story on Boston.com.
Here's a taste:
IT IS YOUR first Thanksgiving at your in-laws' house. Your spouse has been talking about Mother's turkey stuffing since you got married. You arrived here nervously, but everything is great so far. OK, maybe they use a little more green Jell-O than your family does. A few more marshmallows. But still, you feel at home. You take your first bite of your mother-in-law's famous stuffing.
Spitting food out at your in-laws' table is frowned upon in etiquette circles. You may not even spit it quietly onto a spoon, like you are allowed to do with an olive pit. No. You are a member of this family now and you are required by law to eat this stuffing and like it. Do not gag.
Nobody knows why stuffing is a sacred and genetic maternal bond, but only your own mother's stuffing is edible. Stuffing, you realize in one bite, contains the entire map of a family's genome. These people can't be serious! It's got oysters in it! Or it doesn't! It's got nuts! Or not! Chestnuts, pears, celery, all added, or omitted, nothing the same as your mom's. Wild rice? Why don't they just sprinkle on some pine needles?The whole article is hysterical - check it out.
Now I happily make stuffing the same way my mother in law does, which is actually the same way my Mom made it too...I guess I was just going through my rebellious phase with that rice idea.
So unless you do bread stuffing with celery, Jimmy Dean sausage and onion, you're just not doing it right in our family.
But because my rebellious period has lasted most of my life, every year I have to make something unique. This year it's squash soup. Wish me luck.
6 comments:
Marty and I went to a wedding where the highlight for us was the Butternut squash soup. OH MY GOD! It was fab. Marty told the waiter to "bring me a bucket and a snorkel"
I just made that up in Forestville!
cook squash, onions, garlic and puree, add chicken broth. No need to add cream. add curry, s&p to taste. YUM
T-Minus 12 hours to my Holiday Food Fest!!
I am gonna get me some PIE!!
I do the rice as a side -- a pilaf: blend of rices (brown basmati, wild, weihani, sweet rice), onion, 3 chopped dried fruits (cherries, apricots, prunes), 3 chopped nuts (walnuts, pecans, almonds). For my pet vegan, I add baked tofu bits -- that way she can have it as the protein part of her meal while we all growl, snort and scarf up the turkey. Two gravies -- one for the boid eaters, one mushroom and veggie stock based for the woman from planet Vega. Delicata squash this year instead of yams, since Liz harvested 82 delicatas from the garden last month. Big salad including lots of yummy greens from the garden and a perfect persimmon. I made the company bring cranberry-orange relish, since we don't cook with the dreaded s*g*r...
Yeah, Kate - Thanksgiving with tofu in the stuffing would definitely not go over at our house. But just hearing you describe the organic bounty of your harvest I'm drooling! Miss you -
XXOO!
Posting this from an email from my Aunt Kay...
I laughed till I cried over the "stuffing debate" as we had just gone through that at Mike and Kathy's - we went to Long Island for Thanksgiving - in fact your whole Holiday was similar to ours - we had 31 people, 3 turkeys (one fried) and one which didn't cook through due to misunderstanding about the new convection oven, teenage boys who ate whole pies, rain all day so the little ones couldn't play outside, only one dog and MUCH discussion about stuffing.
Kathy wanted so much to re-create her Grandmother's stuffing - I personally broke up 6 loaves of bread (myself, I always started with Pepperidge Farms stuffing (like MY mother) so it probably won't go down in history!) Anyway, it all worked out well and a good time was had by all.
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