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Beau Wann, Jr.
YES, Happy Tday to all youse. The day of forgotten cranberry sauce, left in the fridge, the beginning of leftover turkey for the next week or more, and cold biscuits in the middle of the night, hmmmmm yum! Ah do love mah biscuits and gravy! Found a turkey for 5 dollars, and a ham for 6, and yams for .25 cents a pound. I have been back and forth to the store at least half dozen times today, forgot the milk, forgot the butter, needed more yams, more taters, etc.
I'd have to say that thanksgiving is probably my most loved day, at least it was. Now I seem too old and tired to really enjoy it like I use to. Everyones gone, and those that are still here are having Tday elsewhere. Not a complaint, just an observation, well, maybe a complaint, I'm allowed. Inlaws and Paige and Richard Will be in attendance tomorrow, yea.
I remember thanksgiving at my grandmothers house in Little Rock, Ark. , my moms mom. Mom had two sisters and two brothers and that of course produced a slew wives, husbands and cousins. What a delightful madhouse it was for the kids. Everything cooked was fresh from the yard. I always got a lump in my throat when it was time to kill the turkey. I'd hide and cry. Never did cotton too much to killin. I did enjoy the meat, and knew what the bird was for, but still...dont give your turkey a name! ! ! And " dont take your gun to town bill, leave your gun at home son, dont take your gun to town..."
I can still smell the delights wafting throughout the house, house hell, throughout the countryside. Ah reckon most folks were doing perzactly what we were doing. The tomatos back then were so pungent when you sliced into them, I swear you could smell them out in the living room. Fresh picked green beans boiling in a caldron with about an inch of bacon grease or fatback as the top layer, biscuts and fresh chruned butter oozing from between the layers.
Grandmother let me try my hand at churning the butter, I did want to be helpful, but, it more or less churned me. That milk and butterfat was so thick I could hardly move the handle up and down. Well I wasnt probably 6 or 7 years old yet, and Of course one of the men would come and show me how it was done with the greatest of ease. I couldnt wait to grow up so I could churn the butter...well, I grew up but now there's no butter to churn. Just go to the store and pick up a pound or two...I'd rather churn butter than make a trip to the store nowdays.
"Pass the biscuits PULEASE" ! ! ! Aint nothin bettern hot biscuts with fresh churned butter drippin off of em. And gravy ! ! ! ! !! Are you kidding me? NO ONE could make gravy like my mom and her sisters and their mom! ! ! Probably sitll unequaled to this very day. Those wonderful women were absolute magicians in the kitchen. Talk about making a silk purse out of a sows ear...they could make a meal fit for a king out of nothing but dirt or air. Well, maybe I exagerate just a tad, but it twere dang close.
The meal was around a huge round dark oak clawfooted pedestal table I use to hide under when it stormed outside. The grownups sat at that table, whilst the big kids sat at the kitchen table and us small fry sat at a "Samsonite" card table or some such, "seen but not heard". That's all right with me, my mouth was full of heavenly delights to do much talking. And of course there would be the perfunctory turned over glass of tea or koolade, and the womenfolk would rush over and sop it up and get things back to normal, after the raised eyebrow stare cut you in two. "you just embarrass me to death..." And the ever "that boy's dumbern dirt and twice as clumsy..." both uttered from pursed lips.
After the meal the men would retire to wherever the men retired to, and fill up the house with blue smoke from cigarettes, cigars and pipes, whilst the women cleaned the dining room and kitchen and prepared the cakes and pies and fresh honey and even some homemade ice cream and homemade whipcream, and probably the 4th or 10th pot of coffee perked that day. Not much smell compares to the frying of bacon and the perking of coffee, hoowee those were powerful smells, and one thing I still enjoy some 70 years later. An aside here, my mom always made "Karo Nut Pie" as well as other pies. Took me years before I discovered that "karo nut pie" was Pecan pie.
The men talked about politics and hunting and fishing and all the good stuff, and some about the past WAR and rationing and of course about Korea. Guess they all expected to be called up again. None did thank goodness, cept my cousin John. He flew gruman fighters off the deck of carriers in that war None of the men would ever discuss the wars they were in. Didnt understand it back then....now I do!
Dont recollect what the ladies were discussing, everytime I entered the kitchen, it got quiet. Too racy for young dumb ears I suppose. But hells bells, they did their part in the wars for sure, and dont recollect they were ready to share their experiences, not that I would have understood. Sometimes the ladies would swap recipes, dont know whatever for, none of them ever followed any recipe in the first place, nor did they use measuring spoons or cups.
As many times as I've made chocolate chip cookies using the recipe from the back of the chocochip bag, I still have to follow it and measure perzactily everything, except the vanilla. It calls for 1 teaspoon, but I use 3. I get out every measuring spoon and cup and device we own, looks like Bed Bath And Beyond threw up in our kitchen when I cook. Sort of a BB and B after an earthquake if you will...and even if you wont.
Our Grandaughter Lucy came down from Dallas and spent a weekend with us and brought chocolate chip cookies. I taught her how to make them....The student has surpassed the master. They were more than perfect. Only way they could have been better is no calories or carbs. I just love Lucy! ! !
Diane's been in the kitchen all day cooking and cleaning and cooking and cleaning some more. I spent most of my time between the hill and the HEB. I did help her with the green beans, you know, taking the ends off and washing them. I cooked the bacon and ham to add to them, I peeled the yams and tomorrow I'll cut up the squash and onions and stuff. "If I aint crying cutting the onions up, they aint onions."
What's the difference between yams and sweet taters? Someone told me oncet (east texas for once), but I've plumb forgot. In one ear out the other! I dont believe there is any difference, or at least none I can see or taste. I think it went something like this, "those yam my sweet taters..." voila, the yam was born.
My mom use to make em with lots of butter and some kind of syrup and marshmallows, probably like every other mom out there was doing. Believe it or not, I never liked the marshmallows, too sweet even for my sweet tooth, plus the texture was all wrong. When I bite into something, I dont want it bouncing all over the place, especially in my mouth.
Been 74 thanksgivings, most of em good. At least we celebrated that day and did give thanks for all we were blessed with, a tradition still alive from three quarters of a century ago for most of us, and one from about 4 centuries ago for this country, a very important tradition, as important as Christmas if you ask me. Well maybe not quite as important, but up there with it for sure.
I have been blessed beyond all belief in the 74 years I've been around, despite whatever ailments sent my way. A body couldnt conjure up a better neighborhood, schools and classmates as I've had, so lets all raise a glass and give a toast, Here's to Thanksgivings past and to future thanksgivings, and here's to all my wonderful friends from the class of 64 and Oak Forest....It's been a wonderful life....
Your frien and resident pilgrim, Cephus Loves Gravy esq and Cephus Loves you...
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