Re-creating Thanksgiving in Oxford

On November 23, 1986, I wrote to my mother, “It appears that I will be sponsoring a Thanksgiving dinner for about eight people in my room [at Keble College]. I will borrow some dishes from the dining hall—it will be quite imperfect, in terms of the food, but I will be among friends. In fact, I shall be quite lonesome for them after I return to the USA in just a week and a half [for Christmas break].”

The first challenge that I faced was that the cooker (stove) was not large enough to hold a 9 x 11-inch pan, much less a turkey. So, I would have to default to a turkey roll. And, by the way, don’t bother to pack an American butter dish. English butter is cut to a wider shape. But do bring your American measuring cups and spoons, the British use scales and weigh the ingredients rather than measuring them. Once I settled down to cook, I had to do the complicated math to convert the cooker’s gas marks to Fahrenheit.  Gas marks are the temperature scales used on British cookers (Gas Mark 4 = 350°F).

There were no tins (cans) of Ocean Spray cranberry sauce, the kind that sits on the plate in the shape of the can so that you can slice off hockey-puck-like slices. I substituted a small jar of cranberry compote that would give everyone about a tablespoon of chutney-like cranberry sauce on the side. There was no Campbell’s mushroom soup or French’s deep-fried onions for the green bean casserole, so the green beans would be plain. But the biggest disappointment was that there was no canned pumpkin in England in 1986. I could not start from a fresh pumpkin because I needed the recipe that was printed on the Libby can. Also, there was no Crisco, so I would need to use butter or a vegetable shortening called Trex. I could perhaps do a pecan pie, but there was no Karo syrup. I was mystified by the cream situation. There is single cream (like half & half) and double cream (like whipping cream, but not really). There were no marshmallows for the sweet potato casserole, again just plain vegetables.

My brother-in-law’s family had a traditional Thanksgiving Jello salad called Pop’s Pineapple Sparkle. There might have been equivalents to lemon Jello or 7-Up, but I did not find them.

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Pop’s Pineapple Sparkle

1 pkg. (3 oz.) lemon Jello

½ c. boiling water

1 8 oz. cream cheese—softened

1 can (8 1/4 oz.) crushed pineapple—drained

1 1/4 c. 7-up (or Sprite)

Add Jello and boiling water—stir.  Add cream cheese and beat until well blended in a deep bowl.  Stir in pineapple and soda and pour into a bowl or mold.  Chill until firm. Sandy Klein

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Thanksgiving must be the most successful act of product brand promotion in the history of the United States. It was not until I went to England and tried to make a traditional Thanksgiving meal that I realized just how much the so-called traditional meal required specific products that were not around when the pilgrims sat down to eat. And, even more distressing, I had described a Thanksgiving meal made from real, non-branded food as “less than perfect.”

The one dish that was just like home was the sage dressing, or stuffing. I had memorized my grandmother’s handwritten recipe that just listed the ingredients without specifying quantities in a conventional way—butter the size of an egg; I guess they didn’t have sticks of butter back then.

The very next Sunday at college, during the last week of Michaelmas, Keble had a Christmas carol service followed by Christmas dinner, which looked a lot like an American Thanksgiving meal: turkey with gravy; bread sauce and cranberry sauce; roasted potatoes, parsnips, and carrots; followed by Christmas (figgy) pudding or mince pies.

So, for our second Thanksgiving in England, we booked a private Christmas dinner at the Mitre to be held on Thanksgiving Day. And I always brought cans of pumpkin back to the UK whenever I went home.

The Mitre, Oxford. http://www.oxfordhistory.org.uk/high/tour/north/018_mitre.html.

Next week is the last week of Michaelmas Term, after that I will be taking a break until Hilary Term begins in January. We will pick up the story then.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!