Great Thanksgiving Ciao

copyright©2010TWMcDermott Disclaimer: Any resemblance to living persons, including relatives, isn't.

Joe The Turkey

All the media pundits are debating the meaning of Thanks-giving, as one NPR brainiac pronounced it this week. Since ThirdGarage is a rapidly developing media power, I felt obligated to say something profound about this dubious debate, or, with luck, at least something profoundly silly.

Frankly, I had no idea that Thanksgiving was really about the relative merits of Socialism and Capitalism. I just thought it was about relatives: both the regular and eccentric ones we usually invite to the house for T-dinner. I also thought it was about pretending that turkey actually tastes good, when it is clear from studying the world's great cuisines from France, Italy, China and NYC's Egyptian street-carts that it has nearly no taste at all.

Turkey pot au feu? Non. Turkey bolognese? Ciao. Peking Turkey? Hold the Mao. And the day that my Egyptian friends on the Avenue of the Americas believe we'll gobble-up (sorry) their grilled turkey-dogs is the day we permanently move to the island of Saint James.

The turkeys that the natives might have encouraged the Pilgrims to eat would have been wild turkeys, with a rich and pungently gamey flavor. Corn, cranberries, sweet potatoes, bay-scallop stuffing, and gravy, begun with last year's drippings, would have actually complimented and softened the taste of such a bird.

Today, these accompanying dishes are required to make the farm-raised turkey seem edible. Not to mention the best white burgundy you can or can't afford.

Real Turkey

Gen X and Yers will find this hard to believe, but ordering a turkey sandwich for lunch at the local delis where I grew up was unthinkable. Bologna (baloney) reigned back then, and rightly so. We also had olive loaf, lean roast beef (with cole slaw and russian), pastrami, corned beef, and salami from which to chose.

Turkey was for, well, it wasn't really for anyone until Thanksgiving, when you had to eat it in order to get to the pies and see some team crush the Lions for the umpteenth year in a row.

According to today's newspaper, there really is a national argument raging about how the first Thanksgiving demonstrated the strengths of either native socialism or puritan capitalism. Or is it the other way around? Who cares. Let me be clear about one thing right now: never waste good food on a bad argument.

Foraging For A Sabrett

My wife, the DG, comes from a certified Pilgrim family, whose descendents arrived in Plymouth on the Anne in 1623*, missing the Mayflower and perhaps an embarrassing level of wealth by a dozen or so boats. One of their fore-fathers, Thomas Faunce, actually pointed out the Plymouth Rock, the family's first questionable involvement in local real estate.

There is probably little truth to the rumor that they were banished inland for entertainment practices that closely resembled witchery. But the rumor serves to make them seem really interesting, slightly eccentric, or completely lovable, depending upon which history book you read.

Personally, I love them all, especially the DG.

This year, we decided to forego the possibility of having our guests enter into the current political debate at the table. We figured that guests of Puritan stock (strong socialist tendencies) and guests descended from more recent immigrants (to the right of the right field foul pole)) might have a more vibrant conversation if they could eat  something like boudin noir, pollo alla griglia, or Momofuku pork-belly dumplings.

Great Ciao

This year, the family, in a moment of rare unanimous brilliance, asked me to choose a NYC restaurant for our Thanksgiving dinner. Strange as it might seem (and very lucky), there are no Puritan restaurants in NYC: Albanian, Croatian, even Turkish, yes, but no Puritan restaurants.

Where are we going, you ask? Zucchero e Pomodori, where they do serve the usual turkey and trimmings under duress, but also much, much more.

Tanta Grazie!

* Ed Note: You can find the passenger list for the Anne, including John & Manasseh Faunce, here:       http://www.packrat-pro.com/ships/anne.htm
Leftover turkey is very edible if served in the following way: cold, on Pepperidge Farm white, with gobs of mayo, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, salt & pepper, accompanied by glass of 1% milk. A dieting aunt once skipped the bread, put the whole thing in a bowl, and heated it at 300' for 15 minutes. She is still living. Finally, for the uninitiated, DG is Darling Girl; her real name is not Manasseh.