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Everything Really Will Be All Right

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Thanksgiving: How To Cook It Well by Sam Sifton

It's hard enough existing in the moment without being overwhelmed. Taking the long view, which includes considering the past, present, and future, is rare. That's why most food writing can be easy to resist when it doesn't tell a good story. The other thing about food writing that's worth considering is if it's culturally relevant. I mean food isn't art. Is it?


Holidays and food often go together, especially Thanksgiving. Norman Rockwell created an iconic painting popularly referred to as The Thanksgiving Picture, but really entitled Freedom From Want inspired by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1941 State of the Union Address better know as his Four Freedoms Speech. Thanksgiving, as Sifton notes, is America's most universally celebrated, secular holiday. It's a populist event that beckons a holiday season in the United States. Some people love it for its traditions, festivities, and time off, while others dread it for various reasons.


Sifton's writing style propels readers forward to keep reading. His prose poetically includes you in the action of what's important to notice. The energy is palpable. The way he writes is the way you think. The words make sense as you read them. You wonder how he got inside your head. He tells stories so that you interact with the pages that they're written on. Then you share what you read by retelling people what you cared about in the stories. In reading Sifton's work he affords you a feeling of weight as if he has a gravitational pull on you so that you can't deny him. You have to notice him or you'll crash. Sifton's way with words makes you feel as if you're in the center of things. Only by having a relationship with him can you hold your own. It's personal.


Thanksgiving isn't only about its traditional recipes (that are reliably written so that anyone can understand and appreciate them), it's also about the holiday's spirit. Consider what Sifton describes as he relates the experience of the first Thanksgiving turkey he helped to prepare.



My favorite chapter in Thanksgiving is "Setting the Table, Serving the Food & Some Questions on Etiquette" because the effects are sacramental when table settings are correctly arranged by people who know how to do them properly. Sifton compares the Thanksgiving table to an altar that should look, "as resplendent as a silk-covered elephant sitting on a little stool," a childlike image that's gloriously regal, and innocently surprising. It's a place where family, friends, and guests, breaking bread together, putting aside their differences, and caring about each other commonly come together in groups to take time to give thanks. Whether they do it or not isn't as important as that it's official. Since, it is, Sifton recommends that they try their best.

Sifton rules out appetizers and salads on Thanksgiving. Only oysters are the exception to consume while everyone's arriving, the turkey is resting and the platters of side dishes are being blessed with a final warming. Sifton calls oysters, "a brilliant solution to the fidgety issue of serving food in advance of the Thanksgiving meal." Their openings are anticipated. People enjoy watching the process and trying it themselves. "Consumed with a sparkling wine, outdoors if possible, oysters provide a direct and visceral connection to aquatic harvest, and to the true history of Thanksgiving in America." Oyster eating is light, whets the appetite without being filling. It's conducive to relaxing, being yourself, and having a good time.

The message of Thanksgiving is that, "Everything will really be all right." Each chapter includes Sifton's proven recipes that are preceded by illuminating and personal descriptions of his experiences with them. The recipes' authenticity and their descriptions' plainspokenness afford the book with a hip and friendly guide whose vulnerable and thoughtful voice expertly narrates the conversation with the reader. Planning, table service, and hospitality are Sifton's solutions for having a happy Thanksgiving that's accessible to everyone, and artful in its storytelling.

Cross-posted from Southampton Patch.