In our human foolishness and short‐sightedness, we imagine divine grace to be finite.… We tremble before making our choice in life, and after having made it again tremble in fear of having chosen wrong. But the moment comes when our eyes are opened, and we see and realize that grace is infinite. Grace, my friends, demands nothing from us but that we shall await it with confidence and acknowledge it in gratitude. (Isak Dinesen, “Babette’s Feast”)
Thou preparest a table before me. (Psalm 23:5)
In Isak Dinesen’s short story “Babette’s Feast,” the Pietist Danes for whom the titular character prepares the titular feast gather before “the great day” and promise one another that they will be “be silent upon all matters of food and drink. Nothing that might be set before them…should wring a word from their lips.”
I hereby relinquish all such reticence to the Pietists. I refuse to be silent upon matters of food and drink. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day and every item that is set before us ought to wring words of praise and gratitude from our lips. Thanksgiving Day is one of those festivals that receives its fair share of recrimination and castigation for overly celebrating material goods, specifically food and drink. “It’s about more than the food” is the rallying cry of these efforts; to which I would respond, “Absolutely it is, but it’s still about the food.” Here are some facts. We need food. We need drink. We need good food and good drink. We need to gather together. We need to gather together and eat good food and drink good drink together. Thanksgiving gives us a reason, year in and year out, to do just that.
The only crowd that ranks lower, in my book, than those of the recriminators and castigators is that of the skeptics. This is the one that dismisses the unique quality of Thanksgiving menu, that denies the goodness of turkey, of stuffing, of mashed potatoes and gravy. “I’m just not a turkey person,” a representative of this group will proclaim; “Thanksgiving is too heavy a meal, really.” With all due respect, this is complete and utter hogwash. The Thanksgiving menu, as I have known it and hope always to do so, should be considered an additional Way to prove the existence of God. Because our God is not only good, but a gourmand also—such has He revealed Himself.
My parents didn’t raise no idiots. Not being idiots themselves, it doubtless never occurred them to do so. And not being idiots, they didn’t mess around with Thanksgiving. They celebrated it rightly and justly: with menu intact, glorious in its integrity, with food and drink in abundance.
Most years, we would go to Mass on Thanksgiving Day as a family. Immediately upon our return home, my parents would don their apron and begin chopping carrots, celery, and onions, and slicing rye or sourdough bread, for the stuffing. The turkey would be prepared for its final roasting place. Culinary tasks and commencement times would be distributed to me and my brothers: we were responsible, usually, for the cornbread, brandied-candied-yams, Brussel sprouts, and mashed potatoes; my sisters, being the more technically and properly skilled, would have already fulfilled their duties with pie-baking the prior day: pumpkin and mince are staples, some years saw pecan or sweet potato added to the list. Other, Clarke-specific items were added at my parents’ discretion: for example, my mom replaces the customary cranberry dressing or relish with a to-die-for cranberry sherbet (pronounced as spelled); she also assembles an array of “relishes” —pickled okra, gherkins, olives, cherry tomatoes—to awaken the palate from any encroaching tryptophanic torpor.
In my family, Thanksgiving Day has been sufficient proof unto itself that it was worthy of celebration. It had its unique elements, like the menu and the predominant place of the music of Jay Ungar and Molly Mason; it also encompassed certain traditions that were part of every holiday, such as the use of my mother’s good china and the antique silverware, the pewter mugs and goblets for younglings and the crystal wineglasses for elders, the decanting of blackberry wine for one and all at dessert. And, always, in one fashion or another—some years brief, some years loquacious—my dad would say words of thanksgiving. To God, obviously. To his wife, our mother, nach und nach. To us, dutifully. For health and happiness; for hearth and home; for country, community, the Church.
I have been young, and now am old; yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging bread. He is ever giving liberally and lending, and his children become a blessing.
“Old” is an overstatement. I am not old, but I am older. I have celebrated Thanksgiving beyond my childhood home. The first year I did so, I was initiated into the mystery of the goodness that is mashed turnip, celebrating Thanksgiving in Connecticut with my friend and his family. That friend, who showed me that even the tuber is glorified on Thanksgiving Day, has co-owned and managed Cluny with me for five years now. And that was just the beginning of new celebrations adding onto the greatness of old traditions. Thanks to my sister-in-law, I have seen that even a great vegetable like green beans can reach even higher heights: a green bean casserole so good that it is now a feature on my parents’ Thanksgiving menu—even when my wife and our family are not in attendance. Thanks to my mother- and father-in-law, I have learned that blackberry is not the only fruit that makes wine worthy of the Thanksgiving table. Crabapples, too, meet the occasion. And thanks to my wife, my new favorite pie is blueberry pie.
These things are new. New things are typically not my things. Living life, in my book, is like ordering food at a restaurant: you liked what you got last time so you get it this time ad infinitum. But new things do have their place. Faith tells me so. And faith was always the capstone of my dad’s toast at Thanksgiving dinner. Faith in the fact that people gathering together for caloric intake and hydration is actually of significant something, of someone. Faith that giving thanks is not an empty gesture but a fully weighted measure of life’s meaning. The Lord takes away but we believe, too, that he gives. On this day, He gives us turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes and gravy—then he adds mashed turnip; He gives us yams and sprouts, cornbread and honey and butter—then he adds green bean casserole. He gives us pumpkin pie and blackberry wine—and then he adds crabapple wine and blueberry pie. He gives. We happily accept. And now we feast.
Credits: Childe Hassam, Rainy Day, Fifth Avenue (1916), via Wikimedia Commons