[Sca-cooks] canned gravy??????

[Carol Eskesen Smith]

Ah, the memories.  
Yes, we had the celery (and yes, we did de-string it), at least, with scallions, radishes (we took off the top and bottom only, and I'm Scandinavian, too), pickles, and olives, for every holiday feast.  I don't recall carrot sticks, though we may have had them, and cucumber slices, if the were available then.  Whole nuts were also a big thing - bags of mixed nuts for Thanksgiving and Christmas, fresh fruit for both as well, etc.  Not to mention the creamed onions, which were served religiously for Thanksgiving and Christmas (the feasts were essentially identical), and which we kids never acquired a taste for.  
These days, I skip most of the veggies listed and cook broccoli, asparagus, or string beans, and have a salad.  I never really liked lima beans...   I currently serve the raw vegetables as an appetizer, with my sister-in-law's dill dip.  they have grown, to carrots, celery, cucumber, squash, radishes, mushrooms, broccoli and/or cauliflower, grape or cherry tomatoes, green beans, etc.  Whatever's available and looks good.  (Then I happily have raw veggies for the next couple of weeks.  But the crudities and dip are special, only for holidays or meetings.)

Standard thanksgiving/Christmas menu (usually fed anywhere from 15 - 20 people):
Turkey
Stuffing
Gravy (made from pan drippings, the water the giblets were cooked in, and some flour)
mashed potatoes
acorn squash and/or sweet potatoes
succotash
peas
brussels sprouts
creamed cauliflower
creamed white onions
cranberry sauce
olives
pickles
scallions
celery
apple pie
pumpkin pie
mince meat pie
whipped cream
(I don't recall wine, but I wouldn't have been served any while growing up)
coffee
tea
(water? milk? I don't recall the beverage; it may also have been ginger ale, at least for the children)

Regards,
Brekke



  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius 
  To: Cooks within the SCA 
  Sent: Sunday, December 28, 2003 1:36 PM
  Subject: RE: [Sca-cooks] canned gravy??????


  Also sprach karobert at unm.edu:
  >my mother did that...so did i in my youth (so to speak).   now life's
  >too short. 8)   never been a big celery fan, so most of mine is chopped
  >into stew and soup and stuffings where strings don't matter.
  >
  >was she using them for a relish tray or stuffing them, or doing it for
  >the chopped stuff as well?
  >
  >lots of the weird stuff my mom did i just put down to old world (first
  >generation in america) or depression era mentality... do what you can to
  >make it usable.

  This got me thinking. I realize (or at least have a memory of real or 
  imagined events) that when I was a child, my mother would set out a 
  platter of celery and carrot sticks at, it seemed, nearly every 
  dinner. On holidays it was more elaborate, with olives and little 
  pickles and such, but it just struck me that it was, as far as I can 
  recall, almost always there. I get the impression that this was 
  fairly common in America, as sort of an appetizer (and doubtless on 
  my mother's part an attempt to sneak more vegetables into us), but 
  not as common now as it used to be.

  Do other people have any similar recollections, or is still alive and 
  well on a daily basis, just for holidays, or what?

  Adamantius
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