A Thanksgiving tradition
By Jonathan Friedman / Assistant Editor
As a nonreligious person who loves to eat, Thanksgiving is easily my favorite holiday. I enjoy gathering with family, eating to my heart’s content and, of course, watching football.
There is also the new tradition of cable channels showing marathons of a television show or theme of movies, although I am upset with some of the choices network executives made this year. TBS has replaced its usual “Seinfeld” marathon with “Everybody Loves Raymond” and FX is showing “That ’70s Show” rather than “King of the Hill.” I will have to go with the Sci-Fi Channel, which is showing zombie films all day. I will let you decide what the network is implying by choosing that theme.
For those who do not care to watch television marathons, I compiled a list of Thanksgiving fun facts for perusal. I also present two wonderful recipes from my mother, Kimber Friedman. She is a good cook, so don’t mess them up and make her look bad. Enjoy!
€ America celebrated its first Thanksgiving in 1789 to commemorate the 1621 New England feast the pilgrims had with the Native Americans. But Thanksgiving did not become a federal holiday until Abraham Lincoln made it so in 1863.
€ President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving to the third Thursday in November in 1939 and 1940. Some states obeyed his change, while others kept the celebration on the fourth Thursday. In 1941, Congress officially sanctioned the holiday to be celebrated on the fourth Thursday.
€ For many years, Thanksgiving Day football was a college and high school tradition. That has long since disappeared, but the NFL tradition lives on. The first Thanksgiving Day professional football games were played in 1920, with 12 teams competing that day. The Detroit Lions began playing on the holiday in 1934, and have played every year since except during World War II. The Dallas Cowboys began their Thanksgiving Day tradition in 1966. Those two teams are now the only ones that consistently play on Thanksgiving today.
€ In a Thanksgiving Day game in 1929, the Chicago Cardinals’ Ernie Nevers scored six touchdowns and successfully kicked four extra points in a 40-6 victory over the Chicago Bears. That remains an NFL record for most points and touchdowns in a game.
€ Ben Franklin proposed the turkey should be the official bird of the United States.
€ Although domestic turkeys are too large to move fast or fly, their wild cousins can fly short distances up to 55 mph and can run as fast as 20 mph.
€ According to the Calorie Control Council, the average person consumes 3,000 calories in a Thanksgiving meal. Combined with snacking while watching the football game and nibbling here and there, the average American consumes about 4,500 calories and 229 grams of fat for the whole day.
Seriously Scrumptious Stuffing
This recipe will stuff a 20- to 22-pound turkey with an additional pan baked outside of the turkey.
Ingredients:
4-6 loaves of white bread (depending on the size of the loaf) broken into small bite-size pieces
1 bunch of celery trimmed and cut into small pieces
2 large sweet onions cut into small pieces
1 pound of fresh mushrooms, cut into pieces
1 stick of margarine for each loaf of bread
salt, pepper & garlic to taste
1 to 2 cups of milk
Directions:
Sauté the celery, onions, garlic and mushrooms in the margarine. Add the bread and seasonings. Season with salt and pepper. Add the milk half a cup at a time to make a fairly damp, but not soggy, consistency. Stuff the turkey immediately before placing in the oven. Put the remaining stuffing into a baking dish and bake until brown on top.
Candied Sweet Potatoes
Ingredients:
6 29-ounce cans of cut sweet potatoes
6 cups of sugar
2 cups of water
cinnamon
2 sticks of margarine
Directions:
In a large saucepan mix water and sugar. Cook until a syrup is made, stirring constantly. When a thread is formed from the bottom of the spoon as the syrup drips off, the candy stage has been reached.
Spray a large, deep baking dish with a cooking spray. Layer the cut potatoes with cut pieces of the margarine and cinnamon. Pour the syrup over the layered potatoes. Bake at 350 degrees until the syrup thickens and the potatoes are candied. This will take several hours.