Thanksgiving Doting.
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
by Liz Smith
“THANKSGIVING IS indeed the nearest thing we have to a national liturgy. From sea to shining sea, it calls forth a grand harmony of groaning boards .... Yet, what must we think of a nation that, as the central motif of this gustatory concerto, insists upon a bird that has a name used chiefly as an insult!”
So pontificated Episcopal theologian Robert Farrar Capon way back in the 1980s when he was writing of Thanksgiving for the New York Times.
![]() | ![]() | | Robert Farrar Capon extollied the benefits and wonders of old-fashioned home cooking. | ![]() |
The dear old turkey has suffered the slings and arrows of many attackers, yet if the big bird is simply roasted properly, according to excellent recipes (and there are millions of them) the dish can be quite tasty bearing no resemblance to the horrible processed “turkey” we get offered every day in delicatessen sandwiches.
AT any rate, people go on trying to let turkey-eating get out of control to make Thanksgiving “special” because they eat about 46,000,000 million turkeys each November. And approximately 80% or 31.2 million Americans travel by car, 4.7 million by plane, 33 million by train or bus for this holiday in order to get with family, hated in-laws, deserted cousins and dear friends. And along with turkeys, Americans also celebrate at this time the lowly cranberry, which is one of the rare fruits native to North America.
The above-mentioned Rev. Capon noted that Thanksgiving “is the only nationwide festival we have that still involves honest and considerable ‘sit-down eating.’ It is the perfect holiday, superior to all other federally finagled four-day weekends.” He noted that “other holidays are ... vacancies in time ... Thanksgiving, by contrast, has not only a common theme but a common ritual as well ... Thanksgiving is better even than Hanukkah, Christmas, Passover or Easter. Those festivities, while they involve unifying activities, are enjoyable chiefly in anticipation. The feasts themselves are letdowns. Advent, for instance, is fun: it has in Christmas, a future that brightens each dark December day. When Dec. 25 finally rolls around, it is simply a present with no future whatsoever to look forward to. Thanksgiving, however, has Advent, Hanukkah and Christmas waiting to burst upon us the minute the dishwasher is loaded.” |
