A TASTE OF THANKSGIVINGS PAST
BY DAN MILLER
November 22, 2006
Let's see.... what memories does Thanksgiving stir up?
Sunny, crisp November days in Georgia.
Not unlike the sunny, crisp November days in Tennessee.
Almost interchangeable.
Thanksgiving was one of just a few days every year when our family would -- instead of sitting around the kitchen table -- actually dine in the dining room.
There'd be the "good" silverware that Mama kept in the chest in the dining room.
And her special glasses and plates.
The gravy would be served from a fancy silver bowl, with a big ladle none of us had seen since the previous Thanksgiving.
Even bonus plates and silverware, with a separate fork for the salad, and an extra spoon for dessert.
And there'd usually be a few extra people around the table as well.
Aunts, our paternal grandmother, sometimes a stray cousin or two.
For me, the best part.... my mother's dressing.
After all these years, I've never again known Thanksgiving dressing quite like my mother's.
It was different.
She never stuffed it inside the turkey.
It wasn't particularly moist.
It was prepared in those big, deep rectangular pans, like you'd prepare lasagna.... but more like a cornbread/dressing.
Mama would make so much of it that, for days -- if not weeks -- it became my after school snack of choice.
If I was left to fend for myself at night or on the weekends following Thanksgiving, that dressing alone could serve as a satisfying meal.
Simply heat it on the stove, or in the oven.... put a little gravy over it (if any remained).... and there you'd have... a meal.
I have no idea how she made it.
But it cannot, I believe, be duplicated.
There was a little secret ingredient of some sort, (the kind only mothers seem to know about when they cook for their families)....
My mother's secret may have gone to the grave with her.
But the taste and texture of Mama's dressing are still with me to this day.
Truthfully, she could have decided not to fix the turkey, sweet potatoes, ambrosia, cranberry sauce, rice, lima beans, green beans, pumpkin pie.... and just served the dressing and gravy, and I would have considered it a Thanksgiving feast fit for royalty.
I still think about that dressing.
I wish there was some in the refrigerator right now.
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