Make Mine Traditional

Originally published in the Laconia Daily Sun

The Halloween decorations are still up and the pumpkins are just beginning to disappear as we shift into making Thanksgiving plans to travel over the river and through the woods to visit family and friends.

If you were in Laconia last Thanksgiving you probably recognize the photograph of this wintery scene. I awoke to find the branches from the small stand of birches next to the house were so laden with snow they had fallen to the ground and were covering the door so it was impossible to open. The kitchen windows were covered with white branches that created a lace like design on the glass. Beautiful, yet you couldn’t see out of the window and the power was off. At that point, without electricity and trapped, one had to recalculate the day, not easy without the benefit of caffeine. Yet, Dunkin Doughnuts always comes to the rescue as one of the few places that either has a generator or somehow or other manages to keep the coffee brewing.

As I opened my computer this morning one of the first e-mails was a blog from a well-known New York caterer with Thanksgiving recipes, including Whole-Roasted Maitake Mushrooms with Vegan Demi Glace, Roasted Jerusalem Artichokes and Cipollini (onions), Persillade sauce (mixture of parsley chopped together with seasonings including garlic), and pumpkin spiced semifreddo (semi-frozen dessert) with salted caramel sauce. Not being a culinary scholar, just reading through these recipes sent me to the dictionary. This made me curious.

It occurred to me that while everything changes, and technology has certainly driven us into a period of transformation, the Thanksgiving dinner remains, well, traditional. And even these recipes, with sophisticated names fall into the categories of foods found on most menus. I could only think of calling Hart’s Turkey Farm.

Sim Willey is third generation in the family who opened Hart’s Turkey Farm in 1954. He uses the title of Vice President, Operations and laughed when I asked, giving me the distinct impression he probably does a bit of everything. His grandfather opened the restaurant when the family moved from Cliffside, New Jersey to New Hampshire after the war. It was only open during the summer months until the mid-1980s when it began serving Thanksgiving and staying open during the winter months.

Has the menu changed? “The majority of our menu has stayed the same. We offer a traditional turkey dinner. We have added in options for people with food allergies and those people who have special dietary requirements, but we try and avoid food trends.

We still use the recipes my grandparents used.”

On Thanksgiving Day the restaurant can serve up to 1,500 people and just takes reservations in the morning. After that it’s first come, first served. They also serve around 100 people at the Community Center in Meredith for people who are alone or wouldn’t otherwise have a Thanksgiving dinner. They also deliver at least 60 meals to shut-ins. These contributions to the community are in memory of their great-grandmother.

Over the years I have spent Thanksgiving Day in Moscow, Budapest and London. The years I was out of the United States made me realize how much this day means to us as Americans. As much fun as it is watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving balloons being blown up on Central Park West the night before and then being invited to a place where you can watch the parade with the balloons floating by at eye level, there is nothing like Thanksgiving in New Hampshire, spent cooking, baking, decorating the table and then reading Louisa May Alcott’s An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, written in 1881.

It begins:

Sixty years ago, up among the New Hampshire hills, lived Farmer Bassett, with a houseful of sturdy sons and daughters growing up about him. They were poor in money, but rich in land and love, for the wide acres of wood, corn, and pasture land fed, warmed, and clothed the flock, while mutual patience, affection, and courage made the old farmhouse a very happy home. …( An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving and Other Stories, by Louisa May Alcott, Penguin Books, 1995)

Elizabeth Howard’s career intersects journalism, marketing and communications. Her children’s book, A Day with Bonefish Joe, has recently been published by David R. Godine. She lives in New York City and has a home in Laconia. You can send her a note at: [email protected]