Food

I’m not sure if this is about food, or about family traditions.  Then, again, it’s hard to separate the two.  Back when our three grandsons were younger, they and their parents often came to our house for Friday night dinner.  After dinner, the adults sat around the table and talked. We enjoyed the boys’ company  during dinner, but we noticed that as soon as the last spoonful of dessert slid down their throats, they skedaddled to another part of the house to play video games or read a book.  

So I made up a game to keep them around the table.

 I bought a book called “The Conversation Piece” by Bret Nicholaus and Paul Lowrie.  It’s filled with great conversation starters – open-ended questions on many subjects. Some are serious, like:  If you had to single out one year in the history of our nation that you believe had the greatest impact on what we as a country have become, what year would get your vote?

Or: Aside from family, friends or pets, what would be the most difficult thing for you to give up in your life?

Some are more frivolous, such as: What is your all-time favorite line from a big-screen move? Example: Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “I’ll be back!”

Or: In your own not-so-humble opinion, what is your most likable quality?

Each person would draw a card with a question typed on it. He had the option to answer for himself, or to pass. If he passed, he would have to ask someone else sitting around the table to answer. Following that, the person who had passed would have to draw another card and answer the question himself. He could not pass twice.

Our grandsons, who at the time ranged in age from high school to elementary school, often surprised us with their answers – some amazingly thoughtful and insightful, some delightfully spontaneous and revealing, some absolutely hilarious.

We all learned a lot about ourselves and each other as well. It was also intriguing to see which questions people passed on – and to whom they passed.

One question generated an immediate and spontaneously unanimous response. Here it is:

Suppose that every night, for one full year, your dinner had to consist of the cuisine from a foreign country – the same foreign country each night for a year. Which country’s food would you choose?

 I’ll let you know at the end of the article what we chose.

But today, in spite of what we said that night, our kitchen has become the great American kitchen. That’s because it’s the Tuesday of Thanksgiving week. On Thursday, like so many families in the United States,  we’ll sit down to the traditional fare made famous in magazines, movies, television productions, clip art, and of course, paintings by Norman Rockwell.

Two days ahead of time, my kitchen is already filling up with the trappings. Cranberries, ground up and sugared, are draining in a colander over a bowl, to be mixed with chopped pecans and whipped cream for what we call “Cranberry Salad.”  A lump of dough for yeast rolls sits in the refrigerator under a damp tea towel where I punch it down every so often as it rises. Cans of pumpkin and a jar of mincemeat filling wait for their chance to star in whipped cream –topped pies, which everyone knows is the main reason for cleaning our plates at the table groaning with roast turkey,  cornbread stuffing, giblet gravy, and so forth.

I have to separate the next item from the rest. That’s because in our house, it overshadows the turkey and stuffing. In other words, if we don’t make this dish, we might as well forget Thanksgiving entirely.

 It is the egg noodles made by my husband, Charlie. Their construction takes place in a two-day extravaganza of herbs, spices, a whole chicken with additional rendered chicken fat from a deli, flour, eggs and heavy cream.

Tomorrow I’ll put the chicken in a large stockpot with water to cover it, and add celery, onion, carrot, peppercorns, a whole allspice or two, a bay leaf, parsley, rosemary and thyme (the sage goes in the stuffing). I’ll cook it for hours, until the meat falls off the bones, then I’ll remove all the vegetables, the meat and bones and skin, strain out the herbs and spices and refrigerate the broth overnight.

 By this time, Charlie has beaten eggs and cream and salt together, added flour until the mixture becomes a stiff dough, kneaded it on a floured board, rolled it thin, cut it into strips and set it on newspapers to dry overnight.

Early Thursday morning, I’ll set the broth back on the stove to simmer and plop in a half-cup of chicken fat. Charlie will add the dried noodles and we’ll wait impatiently for them to grow fat and tender in the rich broth. When they’ve reached their peak of succulence, we’ll throw in a few handfuls of the cooked chicken.  

No one turns down Charlie’s egg noodles. Nieces and nephews in their hungry college dorm days and sneaky in-laws have been known to make off with the leftovers, leaving town before they could be caught with the goods.  That’s our family’s Thanksgiving tradition.

As for the food we all said we could happily exist on for a year? Well, it’s the one we can’t go without for even a week – the one we seek out at our favorite restaurant the minute we return from a trip: Mexican food! 
And, yes, even as Thanksgiving preparations proceed apace, there is also a pot of chili on the stove, and I think it’s calling my name.