Chapter 20 Thanksgiving
Before Andrea opened her eyes, she could tell it was Thanksgiving. Anyone with a working nose would have known. It was not the smell of pancakes that greeted her on this holiday from school, but the smell of roasting turkey.
Yesterday she and Philip had spent over four hours helping Mom in the kitchen. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say Andrea was helping and Philip was learning how to help; although he had saved Andrea several trips to the refrigerator. It used to be Andrea who went for the milk and the eggs. Yesterday Andrea had helped Mom measure, add, and stir, and Philip ran the errands. Together they had completed a huge cranberry salad, two pumpkin pies, and a pan of dinner rolls. Mom still sang the A-B-C song while they kneaded dough for eight minutes. Mom had been singing that song as the kneading song ever since Andrea was 18 months old. Andrea smiled. It must be effective. Both she and Philip could sing their A-B-Cs before attending preschool. Maybe she should ask Mom if there was a long division math song.
Andrea shoved her feet into slippers and headed toward the bathroom and her toothbrush. Entering the dining room a few minutes later, she asked, “Has Gracie arrived yet?”
“Haven’t seen him,” replied Mom. “It’s Thursday, were you expecting him today?”
“Of course,” said Andrea, “a cat that comes when you open a tuna can would certainly smell turkey roasting even if he was a mile away!”
Daddy laughed, “You may have a bit of competition for Gracie’s olfactory senses today.”
“What?” asked Philip. “What is Gracie doing at the old factory?”
“I am talking about Gracie’s nose,” said Daddy. “The ability to smell things is called your olfactory sense.”
“I thought cents were pennies,” said Philip, bewildered.
“Here we go again,” whispered Andrea.
“It’s okay,” Mom whispered back, “Just wait until he grows up and reads Shakespeare’s puns.”
“Shakespeare?” questioned Andrea; but Daddy was already launching into a description of the senses.
“You see, Philip, we see with our eyes and we call that vision, hearing is called our auditory sense, smelling is the olfactory sense and tasting is the gustatory sense.”
“Oh, wow, I get it,” said Andrea. “Me gustan los pumpkin pies! Me gusta turkey! Gustatory has the same root as ‘to like’ in Spanish. Auditory means to hear and we go to an auditorium to listen. But . . . smelling like an ‘old factory,’ does not sound very exciting.”
“I certainly hope it smells better than an old factory around here!” exclaimed Mom. She opened the oven door to baste the turkey, and warm, juicy smells wafted across the room.
“Thanksgiving is historically a holiday for the senses,” intoned Dad.
“Those pilgrims were very thankful when they saw food, smelled food,and tasted food, they probably couldn’t wait to get their hands on it. The governor proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving.”
“A whole day?” asked Andrea with eyebrows raised. “You mean they couldn’t eat until they said table grace for a whole day?”
Dad laughed at her dismay, “The prayer was probably a little longer than, ‘bless the meat, let’s eat,’” he said, “but they ate all day with a very thankful attitude. They had not yet forgotten how hard winter could be without food.”
“Didn’t they have any cents?” asked Philip.
“They had lots of sense, Philip. It takes a good deal of knowledge and determination to charter a boat and travel across the ocean to begin a newcolony.”
“Well, if you have lots of pennies you can buy food at the store. How come they didn’t have food?”
“They arrived in the fall,” began Mama, “just before winter. There were no stores in America, only trees and land, and wild animals. I am sure the men tried to hunt and the women cooked the wild game. Still, it was a hard winter and they used up every bit of grain and food. There were over 100 people aboard the Mayflower when it arrived at Plymouth Rock. Half of them died the first winter. When summer came, those who were alive learned how to grow and harvest corn and squash the way the Native Americans did. Pumpkin is a kind of squash, you know.”
“But I don’t like squash,” objected Andrea. “You mean we made two squash pies yesterday?”
“We could have made similar pies out of sweet potatoes,” responded Mom. “Yet, I’m sure the first Thanksgiving pies were made from pumpkin because a pumpkin has something a sweet potato doesn’t have.”
“What’s that?”
“Its own container.”
Three pairs of eyebrows shot up inquisitively and Daddy mumbled something about not knowing there was so much to learn about pies.
“Don’t think for a moment,” said Mom, “that the first pumpkin pies were baked in oven-safe, glass pans; or even what was known as a pie tin. The first pumpkin pies had no crust, they were simply pumpkin custard.”
“Oooeaw! Pumpkin mustard!” Philip made a sour face.
“Custard, custard, custard,” said Andrea, “eggs and cream and sugar-pudding, like Mom told us about yesterday.”
“A pilgrim cook,” continued Mama, “would probably send one of the children to fetch a small pumpkin, carve off the top, and scoop out the seeds; much as you children did at Halloween. Instead of carving a face on the pumpkin, the cook would pour a custard mixture into the pumpkin bowl, replace the lid and bake the whole thing in hot coals for a few hours.”
“While that was baking,” said Dad, “the pilgrim father would take the boys and go hunting wild turkey. What do you say, Philip, shall we go find a wild turkey?”
He rolled Philip onto the floor and they began an impromptu wrestling match. “Gobble, gobble, gobble,” said Dad as he tickled Philip under the chin. Andrea turned to Mom.
“Pilgrims must have had lots of work to do,” she said. “We’ve been cooking for two days and we didn’t even have to harvest the wheat, grow the pumpkins, and hunt the turkey.”
“Nor did we have to scald the bird in boiling water and pluck its feathers,” said Mom. “Daily life is much easier now. We haven’t missed a meal in winter; and we still enjoy the prosperity and freedom of worship the Mayflower passengers were seeking when they sailed forAmerica. That’s a lot to be thankful for.”
