As I've mentioned before, my dad typically makes a vat of gravy for Thanksgiving that nears the one-gallon mark. This means that in our house, gravy is not a scarce resource. It flows abundantly and when the gravy pitchers (boats are too puny for our purposes) run dry, it is easy to hop and refill them from the stock pot on the stove. However, I've come to understand that in other households, gravy is a valuable commodity, not to be wasted.
The first year I realized that not every family does gravy the way my family does gravy was when one of the pitchers accidentally slipped from my mom's fingers as she was passing it around the table and let loose its contents all over the green table cloth. An old friend of my parents had joined us for dinner that night and as soon as the gravy spilled, he leaped up, grabbed a teaspoon and started bailing the gravy back into the pitcher. When he was growing up, there was never enough gravy and so each drop was like gold to him, not to be wasted. He could not be calmed until we reminded him of the four quarts of gravy still waiting in reserve. Once he realized that there would be enough, he laughed, let us sop up the spill with some kitchen towels and we all settled down to eat again.
This story, of the night a friend tried to save the spilled gravy, has become one of my family's classic Thanksgiving stories. Whenever my mom and I start talking about it, we inevitably end up laughing, feeling affection for the friend and warmth from the memory.
Just about everyone I know has some Thanksgiving event that was unfortunate when it happened, but has become part of their holiday lexicon. What's yours?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-23-2007 @ 12:26PM
RJ said...
One time in college at UCSD, I had a Vietnamese roomate who had heard all about Thanksgiving but had never had one in California. I had been reading all about the cook-in-bags so I decided to try it. The turkey came out looking fantastic, and my roomate was looking forward to the traditional turkey carving. However, those cook-in-bags basically reflect the heat back into the turkey and steams it as well-- so as soon as I tried to lift the turkey out of the roaster and onto the carving board, all the turkey meat (which had been basically boiling inside the bag for hours) completely slipped off the bones, leaving me with basically a turkey skeleton to bring to the table! My Vietnamese roomate however was thrilled, as he REALLY wanted the turkey bones to make soup-- but it was a big disappointment for me to not be able to finish the tradition by doing the carving-- plus what thanksgiving is complete when you can't munch on a turkey leg like Henry the 8th?
Needless to say since then I've stayed with a foil tent, 4-5 hours in the oven, last hour spent basting without the tent, and year after year my turkey looks like it came off the cover of Better Home and Gardens! The cook-in-bag tasted great but for me being able to carve the turkey is still an important part of the experience too!
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11-23-2007 @ 12:51PM
ann marie said...
we had the turkey in the bag disaster too....im not sure what happened but those bags had just come out...it was the 60's...and the bag melted all over the turkey....my mom and aunt were seen scraping plastic goo off the bird and we ate it anyway....they also wrote the manufacturer a letter and got a box of products in return....my parents are famous for writing letters of complaint to places and getting cool stuff back.
but my best memory of a thanksgiving catastrophe was my great grandmothers last thanksgiving with us..i think i was 14....huge italian family all seated at a long group of tables in the south philly rowhouse where i partially grew up....and of course italians always have a pasta dish for thanksgiving....ravioli or manicotti or lasagna...i remarked to my mom the gravy(we call tomato sauce gravy in south philly) was really good considering she made it out of the jar....the whole table went silent, my mom looked at me like i just stabbed the dog, and my great grandmother started cursing in italian and didnt stop for hours....she wouldnt eat the pasta either....i thought my mom was gonna kill me.
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11-25-2007 @ 11:35AM
Danial said...
I used the blog entry you linked to and created a vat of gravy. I was a little nervous because although I've made stock before, I've never made gravy or cooked flour. (I don't like gravy so much but my guests do.) The description was perfectly easy to follow and I ended up with delicious gravy and everyone wanted to take some home with them. :o) Hurray!
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