I was recently talking to a friend about Thanksgiving dinner. He was complaining about the difficulty of cooking turkey and asked how my household dealt with the issue. My response? We just serve chicken instead. It’s cheaper, easier to make, and frankly turkey isn’t significantly better.
That begs the question though: can you have Thanksgiving without the turkey? What makes Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving? Being around loved ones is necessary, but not sufficient. We’re, presumably, around loved ones for most holidays. What distinguishes today from other days?
I think it’s the pumpkin pie, but what about my fellow note writers?
#microblogging
I was in Ghana for Thanksgiving one year. The Americans in the village wanted to do a turkey dinner and feed the village school’s teachers and admins.
I was tasked with going to the head master’s large farm to chase down, kill, and gut one of his turkeys. I was clueless, so the servant chased down the turkey, and the school’s cooks killed and gutted the turkey. But not before I failed miserably to slit the turkey’s throat (poor guy) and accidentally cut an intestine that was holding a bunch of poop in it.
So, “yes,” Thanksgiving has to have the damned turkey in it!