In the Soup Kitchen During the Year of the Corona Virus, November 26, 2020
Thanksgiving Day, or Fall Harvest Festival Feast Day, If you Prefer
As most of you are aware, yesterday was the Thanksgiving Day Feast in the United States of America. Not withstanding the perverse mythos that has developed around the early history of this celebration, no guys with buckles on their hats and all that rot, it is still an important day for many. As I am sure my fellow Omàmiwininiwak(1) would agree, we should have kept the knowledge of Corn, Squash, and Beans to ourselves.
I prefer to start my observance of the Fall Harvest Festival with FDR’s signature of the Thanksgiving Holiday in 1942. While it had been around in one form or another since George Washington’s first term as President. So, FDR’s signing appears to me anyway, to be a good place to formulate my idea of what modern “Thanksgiving” is all about.
Why did I say it is and important day for many?
Well, many people have the day off, and who does not like a day off?
For many pre-invasions First Peoples, it’s a stark reminder of just how horribly their respective cultures faired under European domination.
For some it is an excuse to overeat, not that many of the post-invasion Europeans need an excuse to do that.
Family, lots of Family, can you ever really have enough around (don’t go there)?
United States Football, even in the time of the Corona Virus, can you ever really have enough football?
For some others, it is the one day of the year that is to be singled-out to take stock of our blessings or mourn our losses. For still others, it is a chance to, “Stick a turkey leg in their hand and tell them everything is going to be all right”. As is stated in the Simpson’s second season Thanksgiving episode, ‘Bart vs. Thanksgiving’ soup kitchen scene. A scene with its not very subtle poke at the, “Twice a year Charlies”, that blow in right before the Holiday Season, and disappear back to whence they cometh before the Christmas wrapping paper is in the dumpster. However, they are trying to help, even if they don’t understand the true gravity of the problems our visitors face. Hopefully, our seasonal help come’s away with a little better understanding of the stark reality of food insecurity in the United States and that is really all that matters.
This year everything was different, the Corona saw to that. No massive throngs of families waiting to be seated and served. No family style sit down meal, ten to a table, straight out of Lancaster, PA. Tables that were attended to by newly minted volunteer servers for the day, hustling by with bowls and platters of our finest creations. No noise and confusion, no special requests to the kitchen, no unattended children trying to sneak deserts. Nope, none of that this year. Just the 42 of us volunteers, 11 cooks, 16 packagers, 6 runners, and dozens and dozens of volunteer drivers, waiting patiently in their cars for their load of Fall Harvest Feast dinners on a clam shell. Each driver delivering meals to waiting families, shut-in’s, and the dispossessed in our community.
We served 588 individual meals, dished out over a 3-hour period. I would have been proud to put any one of these meals on my Dining Room table for my Fall Harvest Feast family and guests.
The gory details,
From the Hot Zone:
Fresh, Roasted Turkey, Light and Dark Meat: 440 pounds
Smashed potatoes, with Cabot Butter(2) and Half & Half: 300 pounds
Homemade Bread Stuffing, Butter, Sour Cream, Onions: 100 pounds
Green Beans Medley, Dry Roasted Sweet Onions,
Bella Mushrooms, Light Miso Paste, Butter, and Pepper: 180 Pounds
Turkey Giblet Gravy, from scratch. 20 Gallons
From the Cold Zone:
Freshly made Orange/Cranberry Sauce 75 Pounds
Freshly Baked Parker House Rolls(3) 600 Rolls
Butter Pats 1200 Pats
Suitable Beverages(4) (Apple Juice, mostly ) 180, 1/2 Gallon Bottles
Relish Assortment (Pickles, Cheese Slices…) 200 Packages
Assorted Pies (1/4 pie per meal) 400 Pies (5)
I was the designated Green Bean Tsar and worked for several weeks to hone the recipe to a crescendo. My assistant in this task was usually my boss on normal Kitchen days, he is 80, but acts 50. No one though to call me “Beano” the entire morning, I was a little disappointed.
At 3:00, my 11 hour day finally ended, and I drove the 15 minutes to my home, where my beautiful, loving, caring wife, had our dinner on the table at 5:00, This was the smallest Fall Harvest Feast gathering of my entire life (just the 4 of us that live together). Sad that my mother had to stay at her assisted living facility, and didn’t get to join us, but the Corona is now rampant in Eastern Connecticut.
To everyone that helped make this meal possible, THANK YOU!!!!!, it’s 48 hours later and my feet still ache.
(1): If you read my It’s a Brave New World blog post, the same event led to the confirmation that my Paternal Grandmother was 50% Nehantic Indian, (a small sub-group of the Mohegan/Pequot Tribal Family), which here-to-fore had just been a badly recalled family legend (she died in 1960's, so I never got to ask first hand).
(2): Not really doing product placement here, but when you donate 96 pounds of butter, you at least deserve a little recognition.
(3): Ok, my batch of 100 rolls was 12 hours old, that’s fresh, isn’t it?
(4): All delivery meals were pre-ordered by Wednesday evening, at the time of order, alternate beverage choices for those with special dietary needs were noted on the routing sheet.
(5): Our community partners really delivered here, we asked for 150 pies, and got over 400. Into the freezer the overflow goes for our daily desserts for the next few days.
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That's a lot of smiles for a lot of people.
