[Sca-cooks] OT/OOP "Begging for Thanksgiving"

[Susan Lin]

sorry - never heard of it.  I do remember an old Judy Garland movie - Meet
me in St. Louis where her little sister dressed as a tramp and had to go
around throwing flour in people's faces.  But, that was for Halloween as
well.

On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 2:49 PM, Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius <
adamantius1 at verizon.net> wrote:

> Hullo, the list...
>
> This subject came up while I've been running around the house on various
> week-before-event cooking chores, watching short and some not-so-short
> trick-or-treater types in their finery out in the street below. (Yes, we are
> prepared for trick-or-treaters, although they tend to be rare in apartment
> buildings these days - instead of mean old people yelling at kids to get
> offa their lawns, we have mean people who won't buzz strangers into the
> building... no comment on reasons or propriety of that practice.) Among
> other things, I note that the large [I think] Ecuadorian family across the
> street got into their van and drove away, almost entirely dressed as some
> sort of clowns; I get a sense there's some sort of iconic imagery involved
> that I simply don't get. Also that next door to them, the Korean family with
> the several 16-25-year-old daughters sent them out of the house, all dressed
> in variations on Catwoman costumes, but which were probably not so much
> Halloween costumes as their standard Saturday evening dance club attire.
>
> I couldn't find it in my heart to complain too much.
>
> However...
>
> I'm wondering if I'm the only one here who remembers, either personally or
> via anecdotes from older friends and relatives, the concept of dressing as
> "tramps" and going "begging for Thanksgiving". Both my parents spoke of
> this; Halloween was for pranks (things like stockings full of chalk or baby
> powder or flour, with which to harmlessly whack the unwary traveller), but
> Thanksgiving was for dressing up and going door to door.
>
> I wonder if perhaps the practice died out in the Great Depression, when
> many American households in some parts of the country experienced far too
> much of this sort of thing from people who were doing it in earnest to
> survive...
>
> Adamantius, skimming fish fumet
>
>
>
>
>
>
> "Most men worry about their own bellies, and other people's souls, when we
> all ought to worry about our own souls, and other people's bellies."
>                        -- Rabbi Israel Salanter
>
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