Faith Hope & Fiction

By D. L. Gollnitz

            No one questioned the traditions and formalities. From oldest to youngest, we were expected to be both properly behaved and very hungry for the huge Thanksgiving dinner served promptly at two o’clock. Men wore suits and ties; women put on their best dresses. My brother and I had to learn the rules of the dinner table—which utensil to use when—while staying clean for a full afternoon and evening.

            We are a very American family, forged of European immigrants and Native Americans. My paternal grandparents were from Portugal, and my maternal grandmother’s family was German and English. My mother’s father was half English, half Indigenous American, the latter he would never admit because, back in his day, “it would get you no good.” My brother and I called our two grandmothers Mammy.

            Our house was cleaned daily, but as Thanksgiving approached it sparkled. Fall cleaning meant washing walls and windows, waxing and polishing hardwood floors, cleaning drapes, and shining the dining room chandelier. My mother laundered and pressed the already pristine table linens so they would be fresh. The day before, the table was adorned with candlesticks and crystal; the places set with the good china, glasses, knives, forks, and spoons—all aligned according to Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook diagrams. Mom was proud of her family and the home that she and my father worked hard to provide.

            Our tradition started with Wednesday food preparation. For years my mother has claimed she doesn’t like to cook. But Thanksgiving dinner was drenched in love.

            My Portuguese grandmother would come to the house late in the afternoon, arriving with her freshly baked Portuguese massa—our lingo for massa sovopia or sweet bread. It was a specialty that no one could replicate, a dense round loaf baked to a shiny brown crust. Inside was firm yet fluffy sweet bread that brought joy to my mouth.

            By the age of ten, and no longer a liability in the kitchen, I could be helpful in a real sense. We laughed and talked as we peeled enough vegetables to have days of leftovers (and I ate lots of massa in the process). My grandmother brought a vegetable peeler to our prep session because we didn’t own one. She must have worried about me wielding a knife and taught me the tricks of the peeler. Mom had taught me to use a paring knife without slicing my thumb, but I liked this new tool.

            We readied squash and turnips grown on the farm my mother was raised on. Potatoes were a staple of our weeknight suppers, always available in a ten-pound bag that sat on the landing between the kitchen and the basement stairs. These vegetables would be peeled, cubed, immersed in pots of water, and covered. The turkey was dressed and put into the oven before Mammy went home for the night.

            The twenty-plus pound poultry cooked low-and-slow until serving time. On Thanksgiving morning, my mother would rise early and check the bird. After I got out of bed, we prepared olive trays. I stuffed dates with walnuts then rolled them in sugar.

            The peeled vegetables were boiled and drained. We worked as a team adding butter and spices to the squash and turnips. All were mashed, not whipped, and potatoes had to have a perfect amount of milk to make them creamy. Peas and carrots were shortcut dishes, out of a can but with an orange marmalade glaze on the carrots. The peas had to be the small, sweet variety—the perfect size for the hollow I would create in the mashed potatoes on my plate.

            Sliced jellied cranberry sauce was arranged on a crystal serving dish with whole cranberry style in a matching crystal bowl. Rolls were baked from prepared dough, and salad was tossed with farm-fresh ingredients. Every dish was served in its own assigned basket, china, or crystal vessel.

            We wore aprons like those seen on homemakers in television commercials. But unlike those stereotypes, my mother was a fifty-fifty partner with my father in a business, starting in 1950. The expectations being set were incredibly high, but I didn’t even realize what I was learning.

            As about twenty relatives gathered, everyone who walked through the door had a comment. “Oh, it smells sooo good in here.” “Did that bird cook all night?” “My mouth is watering.”

            My mother and I were in the kitchen, perfecting the gravy. The recipe called for fat to be separated from the juices and to brown some of the juice with fat in the roasting pan on a gas burner. We made roux with flour and stirred it into the pan. Browning to nearly a burn was our secret to perfect gravy.

            There was so much more behind Thanksgiving that no one made a fuss about. My mother’s parents owned and operated a farm—acres of orchards for apples and pears in several varieties, yellow and white peaches, and plums. Large gardens produced three types of corn, butternut squash, turnip, tomatoes, summer and zucchini squash, cucumbers, pumpkins—and many other things I probably don’t remember.

            We enjoyed the farm’s bounty— all the produce we could consume, Mammy’s tough-crusted apple pie, and her canned peaches and pears. Every Halloween, my brother, four years older than I, carved jack o’lanterns, knowing where those pumpkins came from. But Thanksgiving was where we truly celebrated that abundance.

            As a kid, I loved the tradition of cooking with my Portuguese grandmother and mother, but I never considered the farmwork that provided for our celebrations. Later, as a young adult, I wondered why everything had to be so elaborate.

            Now, the farm is long gone, my grandparents and my father are dining in heaven. My mother, brother and I live at distances that make holiday gatherings a challenge. I have never had the opportunity to host a multi-generation family meal.

            My own growing family creates new traditions that are very different from those of my childhood. In the shadow of my mind, though, I still hold onto the rituals that symbolize my family’s gratitude.

            Recalling that 1955 ranch home in Rhode Island, my mind goes back to those long-ago Thanksgiving mornings filled with anticipation and preparation. There was at least one homemade pie for every two people, an abundance of hugs and laughter, and all the love we could hold.

D. L. Gollnitz is a former educator, author of two published novels, and quilter. She was born in New England and now lives in the Midwest with her husband.