Giving Thanks
Originally published in The Laconia Daily Sun ›
As Thanksgiving approaches, I begin to prepare the menu for our family gathering. A traditional turkey, squash, potatoes and cranberry sauce, of course. Yet, although I am a north country girl through and through, I have always loved the cultural and food heritage of the south.
As a subscriber to Southern Living and Garden & Gun, magazines that feature articles around southern living and entertaining, I often linger over the recipes. The current issues include pies: sweet tea buttermilk pie, elegant pumpkin-walnut layered pie, bourbon pecan pie, and apple and cranberry pie. Then there is the stuffing. In New Orleans it’s often made with roasted oysters, changing the texture and the flavor of a more traditional bread and raisin combination.
As I was pondering over these recipes and thinking about the menu, I learned about a cookbook that has been published in London. Megan Markle, before she became the HRH Duchess of Sussex, visited the families who were displaced after the Grenfell fire in London. The Grenfell Towers, as you probably recall, were a block of flats in North Kensington, West London that burned down on June 14, 2017 in one of the deadliest structural fires in the United Kingdom. The families came from many ethnic backgrounds and were forced into Council flats.
The Duchess, after meeting the women who had gathered to cook together for their families, suggested they write and create a cookbook and sell it to raise funds for the many victims. Together: Our Community Cookbook was published in September (Ebury Publishing, UK and Crown Publishing, US/Canada). The book quickly became a best seller in London.
As I thought about this book and the plight of the families who lived in the Grenville Towers I began to think about the millions of refugees across the globe. There are, according to estimates by the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR), at least 68.5 million forcibly displaced people in the world now, including 25.4 million refugees.
I began to think about these people gathering together to celebrate a significant holiday in their culture. Imagine preparing a traditional Thanksgiving dinner in a refugee camp, without an oven, with only a few large pots to prepare stews and rice dishes, the most basic ingredients and only an oil burner for cooking.
This made me reflect about the meaning of Thanksgiving, first celebrated in October 1621. The feast lasted for three days and included the Pilgrims, who were celebrating their first harvest, and the Native Americans who were living here. An opportunity for people to come together and share their customs and culture.
Perhaps our Thanksgiving menu should change, dramatically. The roasted turkey might be surrounded by dishes that represent other cultures, recipes from across the globe and include noodles, curries, fish and meat.
In 1955 the poet Carl Sandburg collaborated with his brother in law, the photographer Edward Steichen, and curated an exhibition of 503 images from 273 photographs in 68 countries. It was held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and was entitled: The Family of Man. The exhibit was a visual essay that celebrated the universal human experience and toured the world for eight years. A book, designed by Leo Lionni, accompanied the exhibition, has sold millions of copies and has never been out of print.
From the Prologue, The Family of Man:
“To the question, ‘What will the story be of the Family of Man across the near or far future?’ some would reply, ‘For the answers read if you can the strange and baffling eyes of youth.’
There is only one man in the world
and his name is All Men.
There is only one woman in the world
and her name is All Women.
There is only one child in the world
and the child’s name is All Children.
A camera testament, a drama of the Grand Canyon of humanity, an epic woven of fun, mystery and holiness l- here is the Family of Man.”
Carl Sandburg
As we gather together to celebrate Thanksgiving next week, let us be grateful and give thanks for our freedom.