Traditions…

Back when the world was young the tradition was that the Christmas feast was controlled by my father and the evening before the big event my brother and I took turns helping him to make the dressing for the turkey. The old hand crank grinder was cleaned and clamped onto the work bench in the basement and out came the ingredients and several baking sheets to catch the mixture as is squeezed out through the holes of the grinder. You may ask what went into that dressing but you won’t get an answer from me. I don’t know exactly how far back it goes but I know my copy of the recipe is carefully hand-written on an old piece of paper towel in my grandmother’s handwriting and goes back to the early 60’s. She got it from her mother and for all I know she in turn got it from her mother and so on back. All I know is that it is darned good!

After our cranking was over (and following much wiping of tears caused by the onions in the mix) my father took over for the stuffing of the bird. There was always plenty of dressing to fill the cavity and two or three meat loaf pans as well which were carefully sealed with tin foil ready for the oven. The turkey itself went in around midnight and spent the overnight hours slow roasting and getting more and more tender and juicy. In the morning the heat would be cranked up for a few hours and then the top would come off the roaster for the last little bit just to brown everything up nicely. To keep the skin from drying out during such a long roast a few strips of bacon would be placed on top of the bird and the fat would keep everything soft and add a great flavor at the same time.

Christmas dinner would be at noon and naturally came complete with mashed potatoes and gravy, turnip, peas, the turkey itself and of course that great dressing which was all the better because “we” had helped. To top the entire event off was that great home-made steamed pudding and sauce made by my mother. The recipes for both of these delicacies are lost now unfortunately, but dessert sure was good and every one of those thousands of wonderful calories in that sauce were really something special. Following the feast there was much groaning and loosening of belts, for us guys anyway. My mother was much more sensible and ate very little so didn’t have the same problem as we did.

Ahhh… the old days before I got into retail and quickly learned to passionately hate Christmas (a subject for a future posting). If there was only some way to just keep that special feeling of the annual feast without all the BS it would be great. Sure, we can cook a turkey with all the trimmings anytime but it just isn’t the same as that once a year tradition to me. What about you?

(Photos used under Creative Commons License - Turkey - Cash Register)