Yoda’s Thanksgiving

Over the river, and through the wood,
To Grandmother’s house we go;
the horse knows the way to carry the sleigh
through the white and drifted snow.

“The New-England Boy’s Song about Thanksgiving Day” by Lydia Marie Child

Originally published in 1844 and later put to a catchy melody, this might be the most well known Thanksgiving song until Adam Sandler’s SNL effort. Over the years, lyrics of this Thanksgiving classic fell victim to fluidity. The destination in the original poem isn’t Grandmother’s house, but Grandfather’s house–perhaps because women didn’t have any property rights in the 1840’s. But “Grandmother” is certainly more “on-brand” with Thanksgiving so the change makes sense. Also “for ’tis Thanksgiving Day” which is in the poem’s second stanza has been unnecessarily edited into “Hurrah for Christmas Day!” It’s bad enough that Christmas season extends into November, but taking over the lone Thanksgiving carol? Not cool–Christmas.

My family spent an important Thanksgiving at Grandmother’s house when I was in fifth or sixth grade. She didn’t live “through the wood,” but in New Jersey and instead of horse-drawn sleigh, we journeyed there by station wagon. Emma Matsumoto was our “fun” grandmother. She would play with us on the floor and shoot baskets (granny-style appropriately) in the driveway which our other grandmother would not be caught doing. Once while on an extended babysitting gig, she famously swerved my dad’s car back and forth to shake off the rain off the car because she could’t find the lever for the windshield wiper. My sisters and I affectionately referred to her as “Yoda” for her smaller, hunched profile and her wisdom spoken in backwards broken English. While she’s no longer with us, I have lots of great Christmas memories with her and one traumatic Thanksgiving memory.

Born in Japan, she would often prepare food from the homeland. While I marveled at her knife skills, my highly selective palette didn’t have a taste for tempura or sashimi. As we sat down for Thanksgiving dinner, I inventoried the dishes moving from the kitchen to the dining table. Turkey–check. Weird asian soup–OK, I’ll allow it. Sticky rice–I guess that makes sense. Whole fish with eyes in tact–panic setting in. Wait! Where are the mashed potatoes? Are we seriously going to celebrate this holiday without any Idaho Russets combined with milk and butter? My eyes desperately scanned the table, but it was too late. We were saying grace; the meal was off and running. I remarked about the absence of the classic side dish and my parents scowled at me for being a bad guest. Disgruntled, I ate my turkey sans potatoes knowing this meal was travesty against what the Pilgrims had intended. It was a seminal moment in my Thanksgiving career.

“As God as my witness, I’ll never have a Thanksgiving without mashed potatoes again!”

Scarlet O’Hara, Gone With The Wind

…or something like that: it’s been awhile since I’ve seen the 1939 classic. But for me the drama was as intense as it was for Vivien Leigh’s character scratching in the dirt for nourishment while Atlanta burns to the ground. It wasn’t Thanksgiving without the spuds. While I wouldn’t be responsible for preparing a Thanksgiving meal until years later, my paradigm of the traditional Thanksgiving menu was already carved into my psyche. (Carved, see what I did there?) Ever since we’ve moved to California, Jenni and I have staked out Thanksgiving as our holiday to host because we value bringing the family together I must control the menu.

I adore Thanksgiving. While it’s the middle child of holidays between Halloween and Christmas, it will always be my favorite. Quite frankly, I don’t understand why it’s under-appreciated in our culture. If I told you there was a holiday that involved copious amounts of overeating and nine hours of NFL football, what could be missing to make it any more American? Apparently it’s missing mass consumerism. Christmas will always be the brighter, shinier package; Thanksgiving is more nuanced and underrated. Thanksgiving is like dark chocolate, the movie Heathers, or jazz–not everyone gets it.

Back in elementary school, we divided into Pilgrims and Indians for a performance before our feast. At the time, “Indians” was an educationally acceptable term and by far the much cooler group to be in; the headdress with colorful construction paper feathers was way more appealing that the dorky Pilgrim hat. While I was saddled with being a Pilgrim, I didn’t cry about it like Mikey Callahan did. We still had a job to do, and I was thankful for the role I was given in our second grade pageant. It’s probably where I learned my sense of gratitude and spirit of thankfulness. After our performance, we had a feast prepared and served by our moms that would have made any Plymouth resident proud.

While Jenni makes the majority of the meals in our kitchen, Thanksgiving is my baby. In addition to mashed potatoes (obviously) there’s a creamed corn dish I make ever year out of tradition. It’s got all the culinary sophistication of a depression-era food stretcher, but for me it’s loaded with so much more than canned corn and Ritz crackers. Tasting this light brown mush, it brings back the sensory impressions of Thanksgivings past: the leathery feel of a football, the colorful array of Trivial Pursuit wedges, the cacophony of pots and pans coming from the kitchen. It’s the dishes on the Thanksgiving table connect us to our past.

At its most powerful, food transports us to another time and place. In the climatic scene of Ratatouille, Anton Ego tastes the dish and is brought back to being comforted by his mother as a child. Food isn’t love, but gosh darn it, would it be so bad if it were? We talk about food being made with love all the time, isn’t it possible that something made with love is love?

Our Thanksgiving table will be full of love (and stuffing) this year. (Technically dressing because it didn’t get cooked inside the bird–I like the word stuffing better.) For over a decade, I’ve been making the same stuffing with dried mushrooms rehydrated in white wine. It’s become our tradition and every year my wife, who’s a bit of a “Thanksgiving resister,” tells me it’s her favorite. She’s seen Heathers and doesn’t love it, and I derive annual enjoyment out of her Thanksgiving appreciation. My mother-in-law brings over a meat stuffing called Foux, handed down from her French-Canadian mother. New this year, my cousin, Daria, asked if she could bring her Italian grandmother’s stuffing made with sausage and cheese. Yes, it’s a virtual United Nations of stuffing coming to dinner–so much love and carbs at one table.

Daria’s other grandmother would be the one we share, Grandma Matsumoto. She wasn’t at the Thanksgiving with the eyes-intact fish and no mashed potatoes; she wasn’t born yet. Daria’s recent move to Southern California is allowing cousins to celebrate Thanksgiving together for the first time. Three plus decades after that Thanksgiving at Grandma Matsumoto’s, two of her grandchildren will sit down to share turkey (and mashed potatoes) together. It’s unlikely that any sushi or anything with eel sauce will be on the menu, but that’s not Emma Matsumoto’s legacy. Without her modern and progressive mindset as a young woman in Japan, she would never have emigrated to the United States. With a sense of adventure and an open mind, she encouraged her children and grandchildren to embrace what America had to offer. Her holiday menu was not traditional, but she was practicing the traditional holidays of her new country.

So Emma Matsumoto, this Thanksgiving, is who I’m thankful for.