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Show Thoughts From The Garden... by Tonya LeMone There are four unbroken rules when it comes to Thanksgiving: there must be turkey and dressing, cranberries, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie." John Hadamuscin's Down Home' (1993) Cranberry sauce has become a traditional part of our Thanksgiving Dinner. However, as a child, cranberry sauce was opened and plopped on a plate straight from the can and carefully laid on its side and sliced and arranged on a plate very artistically. The questionable slices were then never touched only looked at by those partaking of the feast, so why even include this blob of red at our meal? After many hours of tutoring by Martha Stewart, I realized that the cranberries of my youth were merely a tradition that no one dare to eat mainly because we didn't know what the big red blob was or how to eat it, was it a jam or just for decoration? North American Native Americans were the first to use cranberries as food. Native Americans also used cranberries for wound medicine and dye; it is also thought that they may have introduced cranberries to starving English settlers in Massachusetts who incorporated the berries into traditional Thanksgiving feasts. A settler in the Cape Cod town of Dennis in 1816 was the first to farm cranberries in the United States and then later exported to Europe as quite a delicacy. . Are cranberries a part of the unbroken rules of Thanksgiving at your house or are they as foreign to your family as mincemeat pie is to ours? How do you use cranberries in your Thanksgiving meal? Is it plopped frorn a can or cooked to perfection as a condiment to the main event... the turkey? For me, I buy my cranberries fresh, follow the directions on the back of the package, the recipe that adds orange zest. It is so easy, possibly easier than opening the slimy can of cranberry "whatever" and plopping it on the plate. I make it the morning of and let it sit to gel and serve it up in the prettiest silver bowl I have, specifically for cranberry sauce. Very few actually eat it with the meal, but it is the cold turkey sandwiches after Thanksgiving that my cranberry sauce becomes the main attraction. I have also found another use for cranberries that many may not have considered, I use dried cranberries in my stuffing. Yes, I still stuff my bird with dressing, but it is not your "cook on the top of the stove" dressing. It is the dressing that uses dried bread cubes, sauteed onions and celery a touch of mustard and chestnuts if you dare, fresh cut sage, parsley and thyme from the garden (you can still cut your sage and thyme this time of year, even if there is a layer of snow, but the parsley is in the greenhouse) and then a generous hand full of craisins. The combination of the salt and the sweet is a symphony to the taste buds. . As the seasons turn and my mind seems to focus more on the kitchen rather than the garden, I begin to plan for the most wonderful meal of the year, our Thanksgiving Feast. I would have to agree with John Hadamuscin when he said the four unbroken rules of Thanksgiving are turkey and dressing, cranberries, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie, I love them all and they are the center of our Thanksgiving Feast. See you in the Garden..... |