Meant to do my final thoughts on Thankgsgiving either Thursday or Friday. But between cooking, eating, a computer outage, a couple of temper tantrums by my 3 year old and some much needed cleaning of our apartment, only getting to it now.
Thanksgiving is one of America's foundation myths. Every culture has them. And, as with most foundation myths, there is much hidden behind the myth. When Augustus hired Virgil to write the Aeniad, truth had almost nothing to do with the bargain. It was all about giving Rome a myth to be proud of so they could comfortably forget the military coup Augustus had carried out. In our case the happy shiny myth of thanksgiving hides our history of genocide against Native Americans and our establishment as a slave nation. Most Americans prefer the shiny happy myth to the reality. But I believe that if we don't face the skeletons in our closet we can never overcome the consequences of those skeletons. You don't grow and improve through denial.
This is a theme I have explored every year on both Thanksgiving [1] and Columbus Day. I always find myself torn among the holiday as a foundation myth like any other foundation myth; the genocide behind the myth; and the very real meaning that America has to the grandson of an immigrant who escaped pogroms in the old country.
I will not dwell so much on it this year. Others have written about the myth of Thanksgiving on Culture Kitchen this year and if people want to read my thoughts they can click here and read on [2].
Suffice it to say that I always mix my feasting with thankfulness that America was here to shelter my family from pogroms and with a donation to an organization that empowers Native Americans as my way of thanking THEM for what they lost so my family could have shelter. This year, as I often do, I donated to the Indigenous Democratic Network [3], helping Native Americans gain a political voice while also helping defeat Republicans. For those who want to offset their carbon footprint, something that is more critical than ever as carbon emissions peak and global warming accelerates, you can do so through the Native Energy Wind Farm project [4], which addresses alternative energy and Native American economies at the same time. I also recommend the American Indian College Fund [5] and, protecting the rights of Native women, I recommend the Native American Women's Health Education Resource Center [6].
Now, for those who have followed my cooking odyssey through our choice of bird (a capon) through my tea soaking and brothing of the bird [7], here is the final food epic of our Thanksgiving.
The hardest ingredient to obtain was the challah for the stuffing. My grandmother's "recipe" (no actual recipe has ever been seen...you have to kind of use the force to get it all right) is the following:
challah (toasted)
butter (real butter, unsalted)
walnuts
salt
pepper
poultry seasoning
nutmeg
Toast and tear up the challah. Mix in pieces of butter (err on the buttery side, arteries be damned!) and walnuts. Moisten as needed (she used water, I use some of the broth I soaked the bird in overnight). Season to taste.
That's it. Simple as can be. People would always love it and never could get it right because they'd always add stuff.
In Park Slope Brooklyn, you'd think Challah would be easy to get. It wasn't. Most of our bakeries have been driven out by high rents. So to get really good challah has become tough. Around the corner is an expensive, but good, little specialty store called Divine Taste. They sell challah, though only when their bakery makes it and they can get it delivered. This year, I went on Wednesday to find some. They told me to come back Thursday (the day I needed to be cooking!) and they should have some. They begged their supplier to open special to make a batch.
I went back on Thursday. No challah. Come back later. So we went for a walk and enjoyed what was probably the last nice weather of the year. I left my wife and son to go to the park so I could go back and get the challah. Went back to the store, no challah yet. The supplier had baked the special order for the store, but their car broke down on the way! So one of the brothers of the family that owned the store had to drive to meet the supplier's broken down car to retrieve the bread. Finally it came. So I bought two perfect, fresh loaves of challah. I used about one and a half loaves for the stuffing (some for the bird, some made separately with drippings from the bird added later). The rest went to feed us as I cooked.
The capon had been soaked in cherry tea, soaked in mushroom broth, and now would be baked carefully wrapped for most of the cooking to avoid drying out with a touch of butter between the foil and the meat. Beneath the chicken were potatoes, cooking in the mushroom broth the meat had soaked in, and some great mushrooms, also cooking in the broth. I took the mushrooms out part way through when they were tender but not mushy.
Finally there was a salad and green beans. The green beans were lightly steamed then lightly cooked in butter.
The broth at the bottom of the pan mixed with the drippings from the bird. This rich broth was delicious and promises that the capon's carcass will add very nicely to some chicken soup. The rich broth also made the mushrooms nearly perfect. Some of the best mushrooms I have ever cooked. The green beans were nice as well and the stuffing, also infused with the mushroom/capon drippings broth, was wonderful. Sadly, the meat of the capon left us a tad disappointed. [Correction: I was disappointed. My wife likes it better than I do.] The meat was quite moist, but the gaminess didn't suit us as much as we expected. We don't mind a bit of gaminess. We have tried all sorts of goat meat dishes as well as reindeer, elk, buffalo, etc. and loved them all. Capon didn't do it for us. The subtle almost smokey cherry tea accent we liked in the turkey last year didn't come though the bitterness of the capon meat itself. Maybe something sweeter (this year I didn't even use a glaze) would have done better. So, now we know. Chicken and turkey are better than capon. Maybe try duck or goose some year. But turkey, the traditional Thanksgiving meat, may yet be the best to us.
So happy Thanksgiving to all our readers and I hope you join me in adding a gift to Native Americans every year as part of your Thanksgiving tradition. As we celebrate we can also work towards correcting the wrongs that our nation was founded upon.
[8] | 
[9] | 
[10] | 
[11] | 
[12] | 
[13]