Albert Yuravich 2016-10-24 06:42:36
Our Horn of Plenty
When you think of a Thanksgiving feast, what comes to mind? Perhaps turkey, stuffing, potatoes, cranberry sauce, corn, green beans and pumpkin pie.
But as Sherry Pocknett, executive chef at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum & Research Center, tells us, there’s far more variety to the Thanksgiving meal in our region than many of us know. A member of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe, Pocknett gives us an education on how to use indigenous traditions and local ingredients to create a native-inspired spread, including corn cakes, venison tenderloin and quahog stuffing. Check out the recipes on pages 84-88.
The Smith family of Sharon used plenty of native ingredients to make their own sumptuous Thanksgiving feast in 1779. The account is provided in an incredibly detailed letter written by Juliana Smith to her cousin.
As the Revolutionary War raged, Smith writes: “Of course we could have no roast beef. None of us have tasted beef this three years back as it all must go to the Army, & too little they get, poor fellows.” Instead, the Smiths dined on venison from a local Native American.
In addition, the Smith family had huge cuts of roast pork, a “big roast turkey,” a goose and two large pigeon “pasties,” or pies.
Unfortunately, wine was in short supply. “Uncle Simeon has still a cask or two, but it must all be saved for the sick,” Smith wrote. Luckily, cider proved a “sufficient substitute.”
When preparing the pies and cakes served for dessert, once again, substitution was necessary: “Neither love nor money could buy raisins, but our good red cherries dried without the pits, did almost as well.”
Cherries featured in mince pies, where venison stood in for beef. Other sweet treats included pumpkin pie, apple tarts and “Indian puddings.” Rather than the traditional (for the time) dessert plum pudding, the Smiths had a boiled pudding made with cherries and preserved ginger from the West Indies. “It was extraordinary good,” Smith wrote.
Just as earlier peoples used ingredients near at hand to create their meals, so too do a growing number of restaurants in Connecticut. At Firebox in Hartford, which Michael Lee-Murphy reviews on page 81, much of the food comes from state farms and waters.
Like Thanksgiving, another November tradition demanding our attention to the past is Veterans Day. To honor the legacy of those who served our country, Michael Catarevas tells the story of four men with Connecticut ties who served aboard the doomed USS Indianapolis at the end of World War II (page 67).
In our latest Healthy Living report, Erik Ofgang spotlights the efforts of a University of Connecticut researcher seeking to explain the link between late-life depression and Alzheimer’s disease (page 51).
And, for those of you not yet retired, we thought we’d leave you with something that will likely make you a tad bit jealous — our biennial Great Places to Work feature (page 59). How does unlimited paid time off and happy hour at work sound?
Toss in a little mince pie, venison tenderloin and quahog stuffing, and I’m sold.
Albert Yuravich
Follow me on Twitter and Instagram @AlbertYuravich
| contributor |
WRITER
Scott Griffin
‘THE GOURMET PROFESSOR’ (90)
Scott Griffin is an award-winning journalist and adjunct professor at Naugatuck Valley Community College. In another life, he owned and operated a Hamden restaurant that specialized in the Southern fusion of foods he grew up enjoying in the Florida Panhandle.
Published by New Haven Register formerly 21st Century Media Newspapers . View All Articles.
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