Want Some Hash?

Thanksgiving Day - what an awesome holiday, unless you're a turkey or, in Newfoundland, a piece of salt meat. What is that stuff made of anyway?  It really doesn't matter, because it's the pearl in the oyster that is the feast we yummingly call Sunday Dinner, Jigg's Dinner, or Cooked Dinner.  In our house, we call it 'Mudder's cooking a feed."

My now deceased father-in-law, Ron, was famous for floating his hefty plateful of food in a sea of gravy.  He was given considerable teasing about that at every sit down.  Inevitably, someone would exclaim "Hey Ron, gravy is not a beverage, ya know."  I'm not one who should be throwing stones when my plate is also made of glass.  Actually, when ever there's a feed, a prefer to opt for the plate with the sideboards.  It probably looks more like a huge bowl, something that could easily be used to bathe an infant or two.  Anything cooked in a pot with salt meat and then smothered with gravy deserves to be eaten in abundance and I'm only happy to oblige.

In Canada, our official Thanksgiving Day is always the second Monday of October.  Everyone I know actually celebrated by eating the turkey and fixins on Sunday, which was yesterday.  I've lived in several other provinces, but I think that is pretty much of a Newfoundland thing.  Many of us have a big sit down meal every Sunday, so to change that tradition to a Monday once a year seems senseless.

The mainlanders are celebrating the taking in of the harvest and to thank god for the bountifulness of his blessings.  Unless you consider stubby carrots and diseased potatoes to be gifts from above, then it is my feeling that we Newfs are most thankful for the family and friends who are able to join us for each and every meal we have.  It doesn't matter whether it's meat and potatoes, toutons, fish and brewis, cod tongues, caplin or weiners and beans, the company makes the meal.  I've always hated to cook for just myself or to eat alone.  There's something sad about that.

The Yanks have their Thanksgiving Day in November because their better weather means they don't take in the crops until many of us Canadians are knee deep in snow.  I'm not sure if our American friends are actually celebrating the harvest or whether the fact that the Mayflower landed the Pilgrims on the continent rather than on the desolate, wind swept piece of rock called the New Found Land.  Can you imagine if the Pilgrims had that famous meal while sitting with our Beothucks, instead of the Wampanoag Indians, way back in 1621?  Turkeys would have been able to rest easy for the past 400 years.  The animal that would symbolize Thanksgiving and grace every table in North America would be whatever one it is that gives us that delicious salt meat.  In reality, it wouldn't really matter what animal we choose to "honour", as long as our Thanksgiving Day feast includes some type of meat.  Even pigeon or squirrel would taste awesome, just as long as it comes with a beverage and just as long as that beverage is gravy.

Time to go, Mudder's cooking a feed of hash.  I'm so thankful I live in Newfoundland.