THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, November 23, 1994 TAG: 9411230429
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B01 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
You will find this hard to believe, but in the 424 words of President Clinton's Thanksgiving Day proclamation, which I have just finished reading, THERE IS NOT ONE WORD ABOUT FOOD!
Nothing about turkey baked golden crackling brown, or a saucer of horseradish within easy reach to pep up the bland slices of white meat. . . . No mention of cranberry sauce, tart-sweet, enhanced by a shot of lemon juice to set off the sage turkey dressing topped with a ladle of rich giblet gravy.
Not a syllable on pecans roasted five minutes or so in a flat pan greased sparsely with butter and sprinkled, oh so lightly, with salt.
Nor of the mellow October suns of pumpkin pies set on the sideboard, not to mention sweet potato pies for the bumpkins who don't like pumpkins. Nor of the high-topped four-level coconut cake with a half-inch of icing twixt each level, handsome as a grand dame's Easter toque, bristling snow-white with shredded fresh coconut.
Why, it is enough to make a fellow burst out singing, ``You speak and the angels sing!'' for whoever baked the cake. Is not home-cooked food, after all, a profession of love?
And how could the president forgo alluding to long-cured Virginia ham, be it from Todd's or Smithfield or some farmer who cures his own nine months or more in the smokehouse? Concentrated to its essence, it should be sliced so thin, as purists say, you could read a newspaper through it.
It deserves a place on the table, if only to watch the family's carver wielding the razor-sharp knife, bowing it surely, the pieces curling before the blade and falling in an exquisite pattern on the platter. He would, if he tucked the ham under his chin, appear to be violinist Yehudi Menuhin, the last slice greeted with a standing ovation around the table.
Nor would baked sweet potatoes be amiss steaming under a toasted marshmallow roof or, if Haymans from Eastern Shore, left unadorned in their own syrupy juices.
Nor did the president itemize vegetables, sturdy collards tamed a bit with a smidgin of fatback and the golden florins of carrots in a leafy green salad, and, yea, even stalks of celery which, when crunched by a table of a dozen or more consumers sound like an army approaching through winter woods.
And how could the president leave out a steaming bowl of oyster stew fretted with golden butter or oysters on the half shell netted from salty seaside Chincoteague.
And don't omit breads: cornbread without sugar and crisp corn pone and biscuits so feathery soft they rise from the platter and wing above the company in a hosannah chorus.
And on the side, a Big Mac so Mr. Clinton, should he drop by, would feel at home.
As for the proclamation, use the blessing read long years ago in one of Emma Speed Sampson's books about Miss Minerva:
Dear Lord, make us able
To eat everything
At this end of the table. by CNB