A holiday for comparing recipes, not theologies

Ever since the first turkey stretched his neck out on the block to become the centerpiece of our annual Thanksgiving Day feast, people have tried to figure out how to turn this tough old bird into a festive meal.

In my childhood it was a process that involved seemingly more body parts than a turkey should have -- not just hearts, livers and gizzards but huge claws, scaled with yellow barnacles.

The cavity was sewn shut with black thread, and the carcass was draped with lard-infused cheesecloth, a process so surgical that my squeamish mother turned it over to my father, who in turn closed the doors to the kitchen to spare us the gruesome sight.

But with the cultural upheaval of the '60s came an upheaval in turkeys. We could have turkeys tented in foil, turkeys roasted in bags -- paper or plastic -- pre-injected turkeys, grilled turkeys, smoked turkeys, brined turkeys, turkeys stuffed with bread cubes, crumbs or cornmeal, stuffing spiked with chestnuts, sausage or oysters -- or not stuffed at all. And now, only a free-range turkey will do. The longer your Tom was foraging for free-range crickets and grubs, the better for you.

Just as our choices in how to cook our turkeys expanded, so did our choices in where to eat them. Back when we were shrouding the turkey in larded cheesecloth, it was simple. Over the river and through the woods to grandmother's -- or auntie's -- house we'd go. You went home to be with your family.

Now we are a culture as free-ranging as our turkeys. More likely than not, it's granny who's getting on the airplane or in the car. Where is home? What is a family?

Years ago, my husband and I were camping in southern Arizona with our two small children. Thanksgiving caught us off guard and unprepared. We pulled into a barren RV park, a treeless series of loops dotted with small campers and trailers, like bright blossoms on a rambling cactus, the sort of campground we usually avoided.

The residents of the park were mostly retired blue-collar workers from industrial cities in the North who'd staked out a claim in the southern sun. They spotted us immediately as the transient and slightly homesick souls that we were, and invited us to join them in their community hall for Thanksgiving dinner the next day.

Given our lack of a kitchen, we contributed nothing to that dinner but a bottle of wine and two shy kids, who were showered with the treats and tenderness of a hundred lonely grandparents.

Over casseroles of canned green beans in mushroom soup, fluffy fruit salads and a bevy of Butterball turkeys, we exchanged our stories, and listened to their memories of hardship and happiness. Not a word was said about the Vietnam War, then raging on its inconclusive path.

That afternoon of long tales and gentle tolerance made me realize that Thanksgiving is a holiday that brings us together, minus the religious fixin's. Other than a general nod in the direction of the One who brought us this bountiful harvest -- even if the harvest is marshmallows on sweet potatoes -- there is no orthodoxy to be observed.

So unless your ancestors were here long before the Puritans, and this feast is a bitter reminder of bigger land grabs to come, make this Thanksgiving a day to debate whose gravy is better, but not whose god. If ever there was a time to sit down together and find common ground, this is it.

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Susan Lenfestey is a Minneapolis writer and blogger.

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