THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, November 23, 1995 TAG: 9511220060
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KERRY DOUGHERTY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 118 lines
AH, NOVEMBER THE 23rd. Time to head to Grandmother's house for a white Thanksgiving.
What's that, you think we've gotten our holidays confused?
Fat chance. Although it took many years for my brother and me to realize that our family's traditional holiday meal was indeed, a white one.
My mother never believed that people eat with their eyes as well as their mouths.
Our Thanksgiving meal was a veritable blizzard.
From the white tablecloth to the white dishes, to the white food - well, I exaggerate, my mother always includes a dish or two from the beige group. The turkey and gravy, for instance.
The Doughertys feast on turkey, my mother's special stuffing made from stale Wonder Bread (don't laugh, it's not easy to make Wonder Bread toughen up - you have to start back in September) cauliflower with cream sauce, creamed onions, sweet potatoes smothered in miniature marshmallows, mashed potatoes, mashed turnips (OK, another item from the beige food group) and cole slaw made with Hellman's mayonnaise.
There is the obligatory red item: a can of jelled Ocean Spray cranberry Sauce, sliced on a bright white plate.
Truth be told, my grandmother began the white Thanksgiving tradition. She was no cook, either. But she was a candy maker of some renown. Dougherty's Dainties were literally pedaled (by my grandfather) to all the best neighborhoods in Trenton, N.J., during the 1920s.
Sometime around World War II she added green beans to the holiday menu. But when she died in 1970, the torch was passed to my mother and she dropped the beans (``you just don't need that many vegetables'') in a New York minute. She's prepared white food ever since.
I ventured to my husband's family for one Thanksgiving and was heartened to learn that they, too, have odd holiday foods.
Sauerkraut for one.
Scotch potatoes for two.
Scotch potatoes originated about 25 years ago when one of his tipsy relatives stumbled near the stove and sloshed her Dewars into the potatoes.
Steve's aunt tasted them and pronounced them good. Ever since they dump a little whisky into the spuds in honor of this now-deceased member of the family. (And they're not even Irish.)
Lots of families have peculiar holiday foods - and the tensions that sometimes accompany them.
I have a friend whose mother is a German immigrant. Her mom hates Thanksgiving so she insists on preparing chicken every year just to stick it in eye of her American offspring who are begging for a traditional meal.
I know one family who protested the whole meal last year by serving tacos and enchilados.
I'm a little more traditional.
When my first child was born in 1988 I persuaded my family to travel to us for the holiday and I wish you could have seen the looks of horror on their faces when they gazed at my table.
A fresh - not frozen - turkey with cornbread and sausage stuffing, braised red cabbage and chestnuts, wild rice, sweet potato pudding, green beans and slivered almonds, fresh cranberry relish with oranges, a tossed salad and a carrot and orange soup, sweet potato biscuits and a medieval apple tart, soaked in brandy for dessert.
I knew breaking with tradition was going to be tough. But I didn't know how tough.
My brother crept into the kitchen a few hours before dinnertime to ask if some of the stuffing could be baked out of the turkey since his new wife was a vegetarian that week.
``The stuffing is full of sausage,'' I nearly screamed.
My mother smiled smugly and offered to run out to the 7-Eleven for Wonder Bread. She created her white bread stuffing with fresh bread in a side dish that was baked separately from all meat.
We sat down to eat.
``Soup?'' my mother observed in that weird high-pitched voice she usually reserves for insects.
Then the piece de resistance.
The bird.
Everyone agreed that the fresh turkey was moist, delicious.
``How much did you say this cost?'' my mother asked, never looking up.
When I told her, her eyes got big as saucers. ``In Trenton I can get turkey for 11 cents a pound,'' she said proudly.
I was losing it.
``That's not turkey. That's a giant ice cube with skin on it,'' I hissed.
The stuffing.
``It's good but sooooo rich,'' my mother said, shaking her head and pushing hers aside with her fork.
My father had a question.
``Where's the cole slaw?''
``That's picnic food,'' I replied.
You've got to know about my father and cole slaw. When my parents married, my grandmother presented my mother with a giant grating board. For Dad's cole slaw, which he ate every night for the first 64 years of his life. Cole slaw thick with mayonnaise.
The only good thing about his first heart attack was that it was traced directly to the Hellman's plant and now he eats cole slaw only on special occasions.
Like Thanksgiving.
``No creamed onions?'' my brother asked.
``Those bitter little things?'' I said derisively.
You get the picture.
But for the next seven years my family came to my house. I continued to prepare a colorful meal. They continued to eat it, although they looked uncomfortable with the riot of colors.
But this year we offered to travel north for the holiday. I've packed my sunglasses. My mother is delirious.
Shall I bring the turkey?
No chance.
Some stuffing?
Forget it.
``You can make a pie,'' she said flatly, making it clear she would top it with a nice dollop of white whipped cream. ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/The Virginian-Pilot
by CNB