Tradition and Technology

I started to title this blog entry “Tradition Vs. Technology,” but then I realized that it isn’t really a case of one against the other; it’s a case of combining the two. Let me back up a bit and explain.

Tomorrow, of course, is Thanksgiving Day. Since we are hosting dinner this year, this means that I get to make a full-scale, turkey-and-all-the-fixins dinner. This is not said with this slightest bit of sarcasm; I honestly love making Thanksgiving dinner, and I often wish we had a larger family to share it with. We have five adults and two kids for dinner and I’m thrilled to death that my sister-in-law and her family (who are usually out of town on Thanksgiving) will be joining us for dessert, for a total of 11 people.

I’m just old-fashioned enough that feeding people a fresh, home-cooked meal satisfies my desire to be hospitable. I made a pumpkin pie from the recipe my mom and grandmother used to use. I cut in the Crisco with a pair of butter knives, just like they used to, and just like my mom taught me when I still needed a stepstool to reach the kitchen table. The dishes on the menu are exactly the same dishes that my mom made for Thanksgiving dinner throughout my childhood: turkey, real mashed potatoes, gravy from a powdered mix, squash with butter and brown sugar melted into it, a giant bowl of green peas with a big pat of butter melting on top, creamed onions in a simple white sauce, bread stuffing made from the family’s recipe.

But I’m not too old-fashioned to take advantage of some modern technology to make my life easier. I made the onions in advance and will be warming them up in the microwave. Instead of squinting to read recipes written by hand on index cards now splattered with turkey grease and squash, I read them from my Kindle Fire. I kept my kids busy and out of my hair while I cooked by putting a Disney movie in the DVD player. My mom kept lists of her annual menu along with cooking notes in a faded wire-bound notebook; I keep mine on my computer.

And I love the way tradition and technology work together. By saving family recipes on my computer and my Kindle Fire, I am preserving my family traditions for my children and my children’s children. They might not have the experience of cooking a meal from recipe cards stained with physical evidence of Thanksgivings past, but they will have the experience of enjoying the same meal that their forebears did. The more that technology worms its way into every facet of our lives, the more important it is to find ways to use that technology to preserve history, both general history and our own personal histories. My children may not have had the opportunity to know my mother personally, but they do have the opportunity to know her through the legacy that she has passed along through her recipes, her traditions, and her hospitality. And I can’t wait until I can teach both of them how to make pie crust by cutting in the Crisco using two butter knives.

 

Family Holiday Traditions

With the holidays rapidly approaching (what do you mean, Thanksgiving is NEXT WEEK??), the annual juggling of family traditions is at the forefront of many minds. Some families have deeply-ingrained, sacrosanct holiday traditions, others are more casual. But whatever traditions you grew up with and assumed that everyone shared, when you get married you discover differently.

Just figuring out who’s hosting Thanksgiving dinner may be a sticking point with some families. What do you do when your family always gathers at your mom’s house but your husband’s family always gathers at his Aunt Matilda’s house (which happens to be 300 miles away from your mom’s)? Do you kill yourselves having dinner at one home and then driving frenetically to the other for pie? Do you try to convince one of the families to move their celebration from Thursday to either Friday or Saturday? Do you play the newlywed card and insist that everyone come to your house?

What about timing? Are there appetizers beforehand or will that ruin everyone’s appetite? Is dinner served at 1pm or at 6pm? Do guests need to arrive late enough that they had time to watch the parade before leaving home, or do they need to leave early enough to watch the last football game in the comfort of their own living room? Do the hosts have a big enough living room to accommodate all the football fans? And are the non-fans then expected to clean the kitchen, or are they allowed to nap while the footballers lounge on the couch?

And then there’s the menu. You grew up on bread stuffing, your husband grew up on cornbread stuffing – so do you make both? Mashed potatoes or wild rice? Jellied cranberry sauce from a can or whole berry relish made from Grandma’s secret recipe? Pumpkin pie or apple pie? With whipped cream or without? Brine the turkey or baste it?

It seems like no matter what you decide on any of the above questions, someone’s not going to be happy. But then, change is hard. So sometimes it’s best to start a completely new tradition. Our family’s solution is to host Thanksgiving dinner ourselves. The troops are arriving at 1-2pm and dinner is scheduled for 4pm (assuming the turkey cooperates). The menu includes roast turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, jellied cranberry sauce (with the ridges from the can still in evidence), peas, squash, creamed onions, rolls, and both pumpkin and apple pie. Anyone who can’t live without a particular dish that’s not on the menu is welcome to bring it. It might not be the exact family tradition that any of us grew up with, but it’s now officially OUR family tradition. And I know that a lovely time will be had by all – because, after all, it’s family, and it’s Thanksgiving. How can it not be lovely?