Thankful for 2020
Is there any other American tradition as comforting as Thanksgiving? It’s probably my favorite holiday, for the sole reason that almost all of us celebrate it. You don’t need to be a certain religion or have some particular affiliation — you don’t even have to have been in the country that long. One of the most memorable things I’ve ever cooked was a batch of homemade turkey gravy for our kids’ nanny to serve during her first holiday here.
Many cuisines around the world have an intense attachment to tradition, especially in Europe, where the tweak of a beloved pasta dish can be seen as heresy, and the decision to alter a step in wine production can cause a rift between friends and family, as it did during “the Barolo wars” of the 1970s.
Thankfully, in a country as fluid as the United States, we’re a little less fussy when it comes to these things, but, for many of us, Thanksgiving is the one meal that you don’t mess with.
But, it’s 2020. Tradition is getting thrown out the window, and most holiday celebrations will be much shorter and smaller than in previous years. The big winner here? All those turkeys who survived because people ain’t eating them. Hey, at least 2020 worked out well for someone.
The one tradition, I hope, that people will not be letting go of this year is the acknowledgment of appreciation and of thankfulness. One thing I’m grateful for, and this may seem counterintuitive, is for the year 2020. Let me explain.
Diseases have plagued humans throughout our short history, and it was only a matter of time before it happened again. Yes, 2020 was by almost all measures a horrific year, but imagine if Covid happened 10 years ago.
In 2010 there was no FaceTime, no Zoom, no Instacart or Postmates. Smartphones and social media were not nearly as widely adopted as they are now, and there were far fewer of the apps that have changed the way in which we live. If this were 2010, how would we have shopped for groceries in a less hazardous way? How would we have maintained contact with our loved ones? How would many of us have continued to earn a living and educate our children?
We wouldn’t have.
Maybe I’m grasping at straws here or just being “Mr. Brightside”, but that’s one thing I’m thankful for this year. And while our holiday plans were tiny and not all that traditional, I was happy to spend it with people I love and doing something I enjoy — cooking. And with that, I’d like to share what I made for this 2020 version of Thanksgiving.
Turkey Meatball With Homemade Gravy and Pomegranate-Cranberry Relish
Even something as simple as a family meal is a logistical challenge and health risk this year, and many of us audibled out of the typical Thanksgiving formation to pull something from deep out of our holiday playbooks. While I decided not to serve turkey at our very small get-together (just my family and my inlaws), I could not let go of it altogether. What I did want to do was serve it early and get it off everyone’s mind so we could enjoy the food. I stole that move from Annie Hall, when Alvie kisses Annie at the very beginning of their first date so they could better digest their food.
Oyster Soup
We all know the modern Thanksgiving staples — turkey, cornbread, cranberries, apple pie — but these weren’t always on the table. In fact, scholars still debate the likelihood that turkey was even served at that historic New England meal in 1621 — Tom Brady’s rookie year. And, even if it had been, it would have been a minor player, with shellfish, venison, and vegetables like cabbage, carrots, and concord grapes taking center stage. I’m not surprised there’s no consensus on this — debate has been a fundamental way of life in America since before the founding of the republic. I’d say that arguing is about as American as apple pie (which is actually dutch, but I digress).
As I mentioned, shellfish was served heavily at that first Thanksgiving dinner, and to pay homage to that I only had to look to New Orleans, which has always had its own way of doing things — culinary or otherwise. A typical Creole Thanksgiving begins with a slew of oysters or shrimp dishes, and the recipe for this soup is from Antoine’s, a Big Easy institution that has been serving a version of this for the past 178 years.
Chicken & Cornbread Waffle With Pawpaw-Bourbon Puree
Fried chicken and cornbread on Thanksgiving needs no explanation, but I do want to take a moment to talk about pawpaw. It’s maybe the only completely indigenous American produce that hasn’t been adopted in other parts of the world. The fruit, which was used for centuries by Native Americans and was a favorite of George Washington, is particularly interesting because it is a close cousin — both in flavor and genetics — to tropical items like banana, soursop, and cherimoya. It’s somewhat of a mystery how a tropical fruit came to flourish in Appalachia, the Northeast, and parts of the Midwest, but the theory is that the ancient plant emerged when the planet was much warmer, and when things cooled down, it survived in North America by being redistributed in the intestines of large animals.
Mashed Potatoes With Caviar and Onion
Like the pawpaw, the potato hails from the Americas, but the tuber ended up making its way around the world and, in doing so, changed the course of human history by altering global agriculture and propelling a Western dominance. This version of the Thanksgiving staple is a potato mousse served with beurre blanc, salt-baked onions, and osetra caviar. I’m fairly certain that caviar was not served at the first Thanksgiving, but what’s life without a little historical revisionism?
Honeynut Squash Soup
Squash appears all over Thanksgiving, both as a food and as a decorative item. The honeynut was developed just a few years ago at Cornell University and until recently was mostly found at farmers’ markets along the Northeast.
Duck Fat Roasted Carrots with Spiced-Pickled Dates, and Crispy Duck Skin
I loathe pumpkin spice. Don’t get me wrong, I have a very real and very deep affection for “warm” spices — the cinnamon, ginger, clove, cardamom, and other blends that have been used in masala chai, mulled wine, and other applications for millennia. I just have a problem with over-marketed, overused spice blends which are often of poor quality. But, this being Thanksgiving, I’m okay with saying that the dates in the dish were pickled with a home-blended pumpkin spice mix.
Roasted Chicken With a Stuffing of Black Truffle, Foie Gras, and Brioche
What’s Thanksgiving stuffing without truffles and foie gras? This signature dish of Eleven Madison Park’s Daniel Humm is incredibly delicious and a labor of love.
Fig Leaf Ice Cream with Italian Wild Sour Cherry
Fig trees are traditionally associated with the Mediterranean and Levant, but Italian immigrants brought clippings to plant when arriving in Brooklyn back in the day. This ice cream was made using leaves from a tree around the corner from our apartment.
Apple
Upstate NY is apple country, and this dish features a brown butter chocolate mousse encased in Calvados (apple brandy) and painted with cocoa butter. It’s served with a cinnamon tuile made from North African brik pastry and Pommeau, a brandy/cider specialty of the Brittany region of France. This bottle, however, was made by Beak and Skiff orchards just a few miles from my hometown of Syracuse.
This was a nice way to end the meal, which had been accompanied by wines from New York’s Fingerlakes region, as well as a boutique winery in Oregon. As we all sat around the table thinking about Thanksgivings past and the hopefully fruitful year to come, I realized that it was 10 years ago today that Sandy and I came back to New York from our honeymoon. It was symbolic. Now that this meal was over and we got all that cute being-thankful stuff out of the way, the honeymoon was over. It’s time to get back to reality. People are still getting sick and many are dying. Let’s hope that the amazing technology we’ve developed continues along its unprecedentedly expeditious path. We are all waiting to turn the page.
Vaccine, where ya at?