Good evening, all! As you may know, I am on the road this evening, en route to Seth’s parents’ house for the Thanksgiving holiday. For tonight’s post, I thought I would share an assignment that I prepared for my gastronomy class a few weeks ago. What follows is a discussion of the importance of Thanksgiving tradition in my gastronomical experience. Enjoy!

I have always been a creature of habit. Rituals bring me peace and comfort not only in my daily life but also on special occasions. Accordingly, I have become the family arbiter of holiday traditions. I am the one who insists that we have a stock of Baby Ruth candy bars for every Halloween; I am the one who begs to pick out a Christmas tree as soon as the Thanksgiving turkey has been cleared; I am the one who faithfully dyes Easter eggs each year. The holiday for which I uphold the greatest number of traditions, however, is Thanksgiving.

From an early age, I can recall the grandeur of the Thanksgiving table-setting. Every year my mother sets out all her fine china and her most elegant table linens for the holiday. As a young child, I was always in awe of the splendor of the whole table-setting ceremony, and I begged for a way in which I could partake. Rather than trust me to handle her delicate plates and stemware, my mother once suggested that I create placards with each guest’s name and set them at the table. My “type A” personality shone through at an early age, as I delighted in the thought of assigning seats and making labels. Soon enough, my placard creations became a regular appearance at the holiday table, evolving from index cards marked with crayon inscriptions to professional cardstock placards with computer-generated names and images.

Once the table is set and the cooking is complete, my parents, my two sisters (and now their spouses too) all gather to commence the meal. My father always recites the same short blessing: “Bless this food to our use and us to thy service.” The phrase is a familiar recitation from the church service we attend each week; although we have all heard it hundreds of times, it always takes on a new meaning at Thanksgiving. Each member of the party then shares what they are most thankful for this year. Responses always range from the immediate setting (“I am thankful for turkey”) to the more eternal (“I am thankful for my loving husband”). Although we all pretend to be reluctant about carrying out the tradition because of its alleged sappy nature, I think we all enjoy it, and the holiday wouldn’t be the same without it.

With all the chit-chat out of the way, we dig in. Each member has his or her favorite dish: Lea insists on the peach gelatin salad, while Katie always loads her plate with stuffing. I, being the vegetable garbage disposal that I am, typically hog all the green beans and salad with strawberries and pecans. Although we all love specific parts of the main meal, every one of us saves room for dessert, Mom’s sacred pumpkin pudding. Always the health-conscious family, I can never remember having a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving—we’ d all much prefer to have twice as much filling and ditch the crust. Although I have tried to replicate my mother’s pumpkin pudding on my own, somehow I have not inherited her magic touch for combining the perfect proportion of fragrant spices to the creamy pumpkin base; hers is always a lovely cloud of autumnal flavors, while mine more nearly resembles a casserole of orange-tinted mud. Alas, perhaps Mom’s pumpkin pudding is never to be precisely replicated by anyone other than Mom.

These elements of table-setting to counting our blessings to feasting on the autumn harvest all combine to form irreplaceable memories. These pleasures of the table provide such nourishment for my body and soul that I will be sure to uphold the Yoder Thanksgiving traditions for years to come.

What are some of your family’s most beloved Thanksgiving traditions?

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