Thanksgiving Day Menu

I thought you'd enjoy a vintage Thanksgiving Day menu and recipes.  Have a blessed day!

Oyster Soup

Crisp Oyster Crackers

Celery Pepper Mangoes

Roast Turkey

Bread Stuffing Giblet Sauce

Cranberry Jelly

Mashed Potatoes

 

Baked Hubbard Squash

Sweet Corn, New England Style

 

Creamed Onions

Spiced Pears

 

Hot Slaw

Thanksgiving Pudding

 

Drawn Butter Sauce

Pumpkin Pie

 

Apple Pie

Fruits—Nuts—Raisins—Stuffed Dates

Water Biscuit—Cheese

Café Noir

OYSTER SOUP

 

1 quart select oysters.
4 cups scalded milk.
1 stalk celery broken in pieces.
¼ cup butter.
¾ teaspoon salt.
¹/₈ teaspoon pepper.

Process: Place oysters in a colander; pour over one cup cold water. Take up each oyster with the fingers to remove bits of shells, reserve the liquor. Heat to boiling point and strain through double cheese cloth, set aside. Scald milk with celery, remove celery and add strained oyster liquor to milk. Plump oysters in their own liquor, take up with a perforated skimmer and lay over butter and seasonings, place in a hot soup tureen. Strain liquor into milk mixture and pour the latter over oysters. Serve at once with crisp, hot oyster crackers.

ROAST TURKEY

Select a plump, ten-pound young turkey; dress, clean, stuff and truss in shape; place it on thin slices of fat pork laid in the bottom of dripping pan; rub the entire surface with salt, sprinkle with pepper and dredge with flour. Place in a hot oven and brown delicately. Turn and brown back of turkey; then turn breast side up; continue browning and basting every ten minutes until bird is evenly and richly browned. Add two cups water to fat in pan; continue basting every fifteen minutes until bird is tender, which may be determined by piercing leg with small wooden skewer. It will require from three to three and one-half hours, depending upon the age of the bird. If the turkey is browning too rapidly, cover with a piece of heavy paper well-buttered, placed over turkey buttered side down. Remove the skewer and strings before placing it on serving platter. (Blog Notes - always follow package directions when cooking raw poultry and use a meat thermometer to determine your bird has reached the proper temperature)

GIBLET SAUCE

Drain the liquid from the pan in which the turkey was roasted. Take six tablespoons of the fat, strain the latter through a fine sieve. Return the strained fat to the dripping pan and place on the range. Add seven tablespoons of flour, stir to a smooth paste and brown richly, being careful not to burn the mixture. Then pour on slowly while stirring constantly, three cups of stock (in which the neck, pinions and giblets were cooked). Bring it to the boiling point, and season to taste. Chop the giblets very fine, first removing the tough parts of the gizzard; then reheat them in sauce, and serve.

GRANDMA'S BREAD STUFFING

Remove the crust from two small baker's loaves; slice and pick in small bits; season with one-half teaspoon pepper, two and one-half teaspoons salt, one-half teaspoon powdered sage, and one medium-sized onion finely chopped; mix well, using two forks; melt two-thirds cup of butter in three-fourths cup boiling water; add to first mixture; toss lightly with forks; add two eggs slightly beaten, mix well, and fill well the body and breast of turkey. If bread is very stale, more moisture may be added. If a crumbly stuffing is desired, omit eggs.  (Blog Notes - always follow package directions when cooking raw poultry and use a meat thermometer to determine your bird has reached the proper temperature)

CRANBERRY JELLY

Pick over and wash one quart cranberries. Seed two-thirds cup raisins; add to cranberries; add one cup boiling water and boil twenty minutes. Rub through a sieve, and add to pulp two cups sugar and two-thirds cups scalded seeded raisins; cook five minutes, stirring constantly. Turn into a mold previously wet with cold water. Chill and serve.

SWEET CORN NEW ENGLAND STYLE

Chop one can of corn or two cups of green corn fine. Add three eggs slightly beaten, one-half tablespoon sugar, one teaspoon salt, one-eighth teaspoon pepper, one tablespoon melted butter and two cups scalded milk. Turn into a buttered baking dish or into individual ramekins, and bake in a slow oven until solid or custard-like. Serve in baking dish.

CREAMED ONIONS

Remove the skins from one dozen medium-sized onions, under water—to prevent the odor from penetrating the fingers—or grease the fingers before beginning to peel them. Drain, place them in a sauce-pan, and cover with cold water; bring quickly to the boiling-point and boil five minutes. Drain and cover with boiling salted water; let cook uncovered until tender (about one hour), but not broken. Prepare a thin cream sauce made as follows:

CREAM SAUCE

Melt three tablespoons butter in a sauce-pan; add three tablespoons flour; stir to a smooth paste. Add one and one-half cups hot thin cream or milk; season with salt and pepper. Reheat onions in sauce; turn in hot serving-dish, and sprinkle with one-half teaspoon finely chopped parsley.

HOT SLAW

Shave one-half head white cabbage as fine as possible, using a sharp knife. Serve with a dressing made of yolks of two eggs slightly beaten; add one-fourth cup each of hot water and hot vinegar, slowly beating constantly, four tablespoons butter, a few drops onion juice, one-half teaspoon salt, and sift in one-half teaspoon ground mustard and one-eighth teaspoon pepper. Stir this mixture over hot water until it thickens to the consistency of cream; add to cabbage; mix well; place on range, stirring constantly until mixture is heated throughout. Two tablespoons of sugar may be added.

½ cup butter creamed.
1 cup molasses.
1 cup buttermilk.
3 cups flour.
1 teaspoon soda.
1½ teaspoons salt.
1 teaspoon cinnamon.
¼ teaspoon cloves.
½ teaspoon allspice.
½ teaspoon nutmeg.
1½ cups seeded and shredded raisins.
¾ cup currants.
3 tablespoons flour for dredging fruit.

Process: Cream butter. Add molasses and milk. Sift flour, soda, salt and spices together; add gradually to first mixture; beat thoroughly. Mix raisins and currants; dredge them with flour and add to batter; mix well. Turn into a well-buttered tube mold; fill two-thirds full; place on buttered cover; set on trivet; surround with boiling water and steam three hours. Serve with

DRAWN BUTTER SAUCE

¹/₃ cup butter.
3 tablespoons flour.
1¼ cups boiling water.
¹/₃ teaspoon salt.
½ cup sugar.
¼ cup brandy.
¹/₈ teaspoon nutmeg.

Process: Divide the butter into two equal parts. Melt one part in a sauce-pan; add flour, and stir to a smooth paste; add boiling water slowly, stirring constantly; let come to boiling point. Remove to side of range, and add remaining butter in small bits; continue beating. Then add salt, sugar, brandy and nutmeg. Beat again, and serve very hot.

PUMPKIN PIE

1½ cups steamed and strained pumpkin.
2 tablespoons flour.
1 cup soft brown sugar.
1 tablespoon rose water.
1 tablespoon brandy.
Juice 1 lemon.
Grated rind ½ lemon.
½ teaspoon ginger.
½ teaspoon salt.
¼ teaspoon cinnamon.
2 eggs slightly beaten.
1½ cups milk.

Process: Mix ingredients in the order given. Turn in pie-pan lined with pastry. Bake in a hot oven for the first five minutes to set pastry; then reduce heat and bake slowly twenty-five minutes.

Apple Superstitions

Do you remember the days when a waitress brought you glasses of water with the menus every time you went into a restaurant?  Tables were often already set with a upside-down coffee cup on the saucer.  And, you turned the coffee cup upright to indicate you wanted coffee.  I wonder if they still do that in some old-fashioned restaurants.  Mom always said not drinking all of the glass of water would mean disappointment.  I thought that was her way of getting me to drink more water, but it turns out this was an old custom.

With Halloween just around the corner, I've been thinking a lot about superstitions.  So many of them are handed down from our families and we often don't realize they are superstitions.  Every fall, Grandma and I would peel apples.  She was able to peel the whole apple without breaking the peel.  She told me that if you could do that, and drop it on the floor, it would form the initial of your future beau.  I often thought that was her way of getting me to be more careful.  Another apple custom was used when twisting off the apple stem.  With each turn of the stem, a letter was said aloud, starting with 'A' and continuing down the alphabet.  Once the stem broke, you were to say the first name beginning with that letter that popped into your head.  This would be the name of your future beau.  To this day, I still follow this custom when removing apple stems.  I mostly make it to the letter 'E', though, I've never dated anyone named Edgar!

I thought you might enjoy reading about some apple customs.  Let me know if you have any that you don't see here. 
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A Hallowe'en mirror is made by the rays of the moon shining into a looking-glass. If a girl goes secretly into a room at midnight between October and November, sits down at the mirror, and cuts an apple into nine slices, holding each on the point of a knife before she eats it, she may see in the moonlit glass the image of her lover looking over her left shoulder, and asking for the last piece of apple

Apple-ducking is still a universal custom in Scotland. A sixpence is sometimes dropped into the tub or stuck into an apple to make the reward greater. The contestants must keep their hands behind their backs

The seeds of apples were used in many trials. Two stuck on cheeks or eyelids indicated by the time they clung the faithfulness of the friends named for them.

In a tub float stemless apples, to be seized by the teeth of him desirous of having his love returned. If he is successful in bringing up the apple, his love-affair will end happily.

An apple is peeled all in one piece, and the paring swung three times round the head and dropped behind the left shoulder. If it does not break, and is looked at over the shoulder it forms the initial of the true sweetheart's name.

On the stems of the apples which are to be dipped for may be tied names; for the boys in one tub, for the girls in another. Each searcher of the future must draw out with his teeth an apple with a name which will be like that of his future mate.

A variation of the Irish snap-apple is a hoop hung by strings from the ceiling, round which at intervals are placed bread, apples, cakes, peppers, candies, and candles. The strings are twisted, then let go, and as the hoop revolves, each may step up and get a bite from whatever comes to him. By the taste he determines what the character of his married life will be,—whether wholesome, acid, soft, fiery, or sweet. Whoever bites the candle is twice unfortunate, for he must pay a forfeit too. An apple and a bag of flour are placed on the ends of a stick, and whoever dares to seize a mouthful of apple must risk being blinded by flour. Apples are suspended one to a string in a doorway. As they swing, each guest tries to secure his apple. To blow out a candle as it revolves on a stick requires attention and accuracy of aim.

Among the quieter tests some of the most common are tried with apple-seeds. As in England a pair of seeds named for two lovers are stuck on brow or eyelids. The one who sticks longer is the true, the one who soon falls, the disloyal sweetheart. Seeds are used in this way to tell also whether one is to be a traveler or a stay-at-home. Apple-seeds are twice ominous, partaking of both apple and nut nature. Even the number of seeds found in a core has meaning. If you put them upon the palm of your hand, and strike it with the other, the number remaining will tell you how many letters you will receive in a fortnight. With twelve seeds and the names of twelve friends, the old rhyme may be repeated:

"One I love,Two I love,Three I love, I say;Four I love with all my heart:Five I cast away.Six he loves,Seven she loves,Eight they both love;Nine he comes,Ten he tarries,Eleven he courts, andTwelve he marries."

A girl who sits before a mirror at midnight on Hallowe'en combing her hair and eating an apple will see the face of her true love reflected in the glass. Standing so that through a window she may see the moon in a glass she holds, she counts the number of reflections to find out how many pleasant things will happen to her in the next twelve months.

When eating an apple, snap it with the fingers and name it for a person of the opposite sex. Count the fully developed seeds (all of the others are kisses), and the last one must correspond to the following formula:—

One’s my love,Two’s my love,Three’s my heart’s desire.Four I’ll take and never forsake,Five I’ll cast in the fire.Six he loves,Seven she loves,Eight they both love,
[39]Nine he comes,Ten he tarries,Eleven he goes,Twelve he marries.Thirteen honor,Fourteen riches,All the rest are little witches.Baldwinsville, N. Y.

Some change the latter lines of this formula into

Thirteen they quarrel,Fourteen they part,Fifteen they die with a broken heart.

Similar rhymes commonly repeated in northern Ohio, after naming an apple and counting the seeds, are,—

One I love,Two I love,Three I love, I say.Four I love with all my heart,And five I cast away.Six he loves,Seven she loves,Eight they both love.Nine he comes,Ten he tarries,Eleven he courts,And twelve he marries.Prince Edward Island and Mansfield, O.

Lay in the hand four apple-seeds and have some one name them, then pick them up, saying,—

This one I love all others above,And this one I greatly admire,And this one I’ll take and never forsake.And this one I’ll cast in the fire.

A love divination by way of apple-seeds, much practiced when a number of young people were spending the evening together, or perhaps by grown-up boys and girls in district schools as they ate their noon-day lunch about the stove, was as follows:—

Two seeds were named, one for a girl and one for a young man, and placed on a hot stove or in front of an open fire. The augury, concerning the future relations of the young people was derived from the behavior of the two seeds. If as they heated they jumped[40] away from one another, the two persons would become estranged or their friendship die; if the seeds moved nearer together, marriage was implied; if the one named for the girl moved towards the other, it signified that the young woman was fonder of the young man than he was of her, and so on.

A common project in my girlhood was to place an apple-seed on each of the four fingers of the right hand, that is, on the knuckles, first moistening them with spittle. A companion then ‘named’ them, and the fingers were worked so as to move slightly. The seed that stayed on the longest indicated the name of your future husband.

Name apple-seeds and place on the lids of the closed eyes. Wink and the first to fall off shows the name of your future husband.

To name apple-seeds, put one on each temple, get some one to name them, and the one that sticks the longest will be the true one.

Name apple pips, put them on the grate, saying,—

If you love me, live and fly;If you do not, lie and die.

A Halloween custom is to fill a tub with water and drop into it as many apples as there are young folks to try the trick. Then each one must kneel before the tub and try to bite the apples without touching them with the hands. The one who bites one first will marry first.

On Halloween hang an apple by the door just the height of the chin. Rub the chin with saliva, stand about six inches from the apple, and hit the chin against the apple. If it sticks to the chin, you will be married, and your true love will stick to you.

Snow in October?

I think it's going to snow tonight.  I cannot believe the low tonight is supposed to dip down to freezing.  It's only October!  I haven't even planned Halloween or even thought about Christmas baking.  Well, okay, to be honest, I have thought about baking.  There is just something about colder weather that puts me in the mood.  Who can resist the aroma of cookies baking in the oven? 
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Every year I think about how nice it would be to have a wall oven or a double oven for Holiday baking.  Comparison Shopper has such a wide range of products to review, it takes all the work out of looking for the right oven.  I love the idea of comparing them side by side so you can find the features you need for your kitchen.  Have you seen those cook tops with the extra large burners?  I have an old canner that I use for making big batches of chili.  The pot is huge because it was used to can half-gallon jars and it's too big for most burners.  Maybe Santa will read this and put one on the 'nice' list for me.  I have been very good this year!  And, it's never too early to drop a hint or two.
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What are you wishing for this year?

A Bridge Too Far?

You've often heard me talk about the benefits of country living, but there are some drawbacks too.  I had to laugh recently when a 'Bridge Out' sign was placed on a nearby road.  I don't think it's a good sign that the county decided to place a permanent sign that says Bridge Out.  I take that as a 'sign' we'll be using the detour route for a while yet to come.  Yes, it's a little wooden bridge and it does have a hole in the center where part of the plank gave way.  I've just been driving around the hole.  I guess someone didn't and caused more damage.  Can it really take so long to replace a bridge in this day and age?  It's been well over a month now already. 

As a child, I can remember several wooden bridge in the area.  One bridge crossed a pretty large creek.  When I was about six years old, the hole in the bridge had widened to three feet across.  Our school bus driver was afraid to cross the bridge with all of us on the bus.  So, twice a day, we'd all get off the bus and walk across the bridge.  Then, our brave bus driver would cross while we all watched wondering if she would fall into the creek below.  It seems like we did this for a couple of months before the county finally started replacing the bridge.  I can't help but remember that now and compare the two bridges.  

Lots of things have happened over the last few decades in the name of progress.  But, it seems that the more we strive to change, the more things stay the same. 

I thought you would enjoy this vintage recipe - especially the name!

SATISFACTION SOUP

One cup navy beans; four slices bacon; one No. 2 can of tomatoes; one small onion; one level tablespoonful salt; one-fourth tablespoonful black pepper. Soak navy beans over night, in morning put beans on to boil with a pinch of soda in water. When they come to a boil, pour off this water, return to stove, cover with clear water, add onion and bacon, let boil until tender. When tender strain through sieve, being sure to press all through, as far as possible. Next add the strained tomatoes and seasoning and lastly, thin with cream or milk to consistency desired.

Big Family Hobbies

Thanks to Darwin Barton

Being part of a big family means everyone’s doing something different all the time, usually. Not in my family! Everyone’s so into soccer I feel like that’s the only thing we all have in common and from playing it to watching it on TV it’s pretty much all we talk about when we get together. My brother Marco is actually an amazing keeper and he plays for the local intermural league. He broke his leg in high school otherwise I think he may have been able to go pro! We got HomeSecurityFamily.comsecurity for mom and dad’s house since they’re literally never home because they’re always watching a game somewhere and cheering some grandchild on from the stands. I don’t know if it’s because we’re a Latino family or just a big, sporty one but it doesn’t seem out of the ordinary to any of us that soccer rules our life! I wouldn’t change a thing about it because we get exercise, fresh air, and to spend a lot of time with each other out at games.

September 11th

I slept late.  I slept late because there was a sales meeting that day and I didn't have to be there until nine o'clock.  One of our agents came in late to the meeting and said a plane had just hit one of the World Trade Centers.  I remember thinking it was probably one of those little private planes again and how terrible it was for the pilot.  And, I also hoped no one was hurt.

By the time the meeting was over, we headed to the office and my first bit of 'official' news was from the radio.  Things were still sketchy at that point, but I remember crying.  Once in the office, I learned the other tower had been hit and realization dawned.  This was a planned attack.  I called my parents and they were at home watching it all unfold on television.  I wonder how many times I said 'I love you' that day.  Didn't we all?

I had a friend that was on a flight that morning and remember having no way to reach him other than e-mail.  The internet was my first sight of pictures.  It just didn't seem real.  I had a lunch meeting that day that could not be canceled.  The restaurant was deserted.  You see, I worked near Fort Campbell, and most everyone in the area was in or connected to the military.  My boss at the time actually made a joke about my being afraid, and I lashed out.  We were all thinking that we could be next.  Rumors were everywhere.  I was so thankful for the work day to end so I could go home to my family.

That night I was able to see the total devastation on the networks. When President Bush addressed the nation, I remember thinking how thankful I was that he was President.  I didn't always feel that way in the years to come, but it changed the way I looked at our leaders forever.  Our world changed forever, and we all knew it.  Historians can judge our actions in the months and years to follow, but at that moment, we came together as a nation.  Don't we always?  That's something those that stand against us can never understand.  We are one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.  God Bless America!

People Watching

Back in the day, Mom and I took a lot of road trips visiting relatives.  She always said that you could tell a diner had good coffee if there were a lot of semi-trucks outside.  That's probably still true today, but I have another way to tell.  If there are a lot people in nursing scrubs, it's a sure way to tell there's some good food and coffee to be found.  I was at a little coffee shop near the hospital the other day and was really surprised at how many workers were coming in and out wearing hospital uniforms.

Do you like to 'people watch'?  It's fun if you have the time to kill.  As I watched everyone come and go, I noticed how many different kinds of uniforms they were wearing.  It made me wonder where to buy medical scrubs.  Since the coffee shop had free wi-fi, it was pretty easy to find http://www.blueskyscrubs.com/ and check out the latest styles.  Don't you just love shopping on the internet?  I could have driven all over town trying to find out where to buy scrubs that looked that cute.  Instead, I found them in a few seconds of searching online. 

What's your favorite way to shop?