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Show Doctor in the Kitchen9 ' by Laurence M. Hursh, M.D. . Consultant, National Dairy Council THE SEASON OF THANKSGIVING "Mother was the first one up," is the way a friend of mine put it as he described his childhood memories of Thanksgiving Day. "She simply : couldn't sleep even a little late holiday or , riot with everything she had on her mind," he continued. "The turkey had to be stuffed, sewn up, and dressed off with strips of salt pork. It would be hours in the oven, emitting glorious odors that increased as the dinner hour drew nearer. A Real Feast "Turnips and potatoes would be put to boil, for later mashing. Other vegetables, salad, appetizers, appetiz-ers, gravy, pumpkin pie, beverages bever-ages such. as milk and coffee all these were prepared. And the family table would groan under it all, along with our best glassware, glass-ware, china, and silver. "As a boy, I found it so exciting excit-ing I was glad to participate by polishing apples and oranges and arranging them in bowls with walnuts and other goodies. "The morning of Thanksgiving, in other words, was one busy time for all of us. But the beauty of it was we all were zeroed in one the same main event. We were operating as a team. "I think we learned something from this. And similarly at Christmas, Christ-mas, we really operated as a family and now that I'm grown up I look back on those particular particu-lar holidays as the times when I was most family conscious." Well, I think my friend says it very well that Thanksgiving Thanks-giving is something more than just a day of plentiful eating. Truly we celebrate not only our good fortune in having enough food but in sharing our human-ness human-ness as well. The earliest harvest Thanksgiving Thanks-giving in America, of course, was held by the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth in 1621 and history books tell us it was repeated often of-ten during that century. During the American Revolution and after, Thanksgiving was the' last Thursday in November. In 1941, Congress made it official that the fourth Thursday in November would be Thanksgiving Day. The Hungry Americans And let's not forget that there are Americans who are hungry all year 'round. Leaders in our country are trying to assess the full extent of malnutrition and its relationship to disease in the United States. It isn't to be tolerated .that in the midst of our affluence some citizens are poorly poor-ly nourished, either from lack of food or lack of knowledge on how to eat. |