My Family’s Cooked Thanksgiving Out of BA’s November 1994 Issue Since 1994
While everyone else cracks open the latest issue of Bon Appétit and thinks about how they’ll switch things up this year, my family will remain solidly in 1994. We’ve been cooking out of the November ‘94 issue since it (literally) hit newsstands. We had just moved from London—our happy Indian-Zoroastrian-Jewish-British-Italian family of five—for a new life in Chicago when my brother came home from school wondering what we were doing for Thanksgiving. My father raced to the supermarket and grabbed the latest Bon Appétit, with a near-orange, herb-flecked bird on the cover resting atop bright green Brussels sprouts and pearl onions. Inside, the recipe for a maple-glazed turkey, sausage stuffing, green beans with hazelnuts, and something called “cranberry Cumberland sauce” have been our menu in the decades—yes, decades—since. We even have the physical copy, all dog-eared and soup-stained, a relic as much as it is a family heirloom, filled with dated advertisements for Maggi seasoning and Oreo pie crusts. Here’s the Thanksgiving menu that’s come to define our life in America, even if we still don’t know what Cumberland sauce is.
Photo by Chelsie Craig1/6The November 1994 Issue
Here it is, our Thanksgiving bible—well this exact one is from the BA archives, my copy is at home, in-use right now.
Photo by Chelsie Craig2/6Roast Turkey with Maple Herb Butter and Gravy
My dad orders our turkey weeks in advance from Whole Foods, and then brines it, “otherwise it’s dry as hell,” he says. The recipe, despite being portrayed by a boat of syrup and some herbs, turns out a gorgeous, golden bird, with layers of maple syrup patina. The original (found here) calls for a double dose of maple—in the butter spread both under the skin and on the skin—but my father’s adapted it by putting bacon over the breasts. More of the maple butter goes into the gravy, which is a heady combination of sweet, meaty, and aromatic.
Photo by Chelsie Craig3/6Cranberry Cumberland Sauce
This (the one on the far right) is the recipe I’m in charge of, and just seeing the image transports me to my parents’ kitchen, standing over a pot of bubbling sauce, breathing in the strong scent of tawny port. The sauce (found here) starts with cranberries and port over high heat until the berries pop, and then sugar, salt, and a spiced cornstarch-citrus slurry are added. This condiment, now a Bhabha classic, is mouth-puckeringly tart, with an overlay of bright citrus from lemon and orange peel, and yet deep and earthy, thanks to the cloves and ginger. I eat it by the spoonful.
Photo by Chelsie Craig4/6Green Beans with Walnuts and Walnut Oil
If walnut oil is still difficult to find in these days of Amazon and specialty groceries, it was especially challenging to source in 1994. The recipe (found here) calls this a “stylish treatment” for “one of the quintessential Thanksgiving vegetables.” We tracked walnut oil down that first year, and must have since, as a bottle remains ever-present in my parents’ refrigerator door (please don’t be the same one from ’94!). The snap of the green beans and the crunchy toasted walnuts always call us back for more. My brother and I prep the beans the night before, then boil them early Thanksgiving morning (“can be prepared 6 hours ahead” we’re told comfortingly), and toss with the nuts, fresh parsley, and melted butter right before dinner.
Photo by Chelsie Craig5/6New England Sausage, Apple and Dried Cranberry Stuffing
The italicized headnote for this recipe (shown only on a spoon for some reason) boasts “an impressive stuffing; it gets a Yankee accent from apples and dried cranberries.” Impressive indeed—so impressive that I spend the days after Thanksgiving forking it straight from the refrigerator. Though the recipe (found here) calls for cubed white bread, my father has always used cornbread instead, and swapped in fresh herbs for the dried poultry seasoning. Studded with dried cranberries, Italian sausage, and apple chunks, it’s starchy and crunchy, fruity and savory, traditional and inspired. The cornbread soaks up everything. A helpful sidebar on the page explains the difference between “stuffing and dressing,” (the former is cooked inside the turkey, while the latter is baked alongside) accessorized by a cartoon of a very large child in a baseball cap stuffing his face with, well, stuffing.
Nicole Franzen6/6A New Addition: Raspberry Ricotta Cake
This cake, from March 2015, is not a natural choice for Thanksgiving. It is not replete with fall produce and lacks a crust; it features frozen summer berries and a decidedly Italian-inspired batter. But I make it year round, more than any other dessert, and it has become my signature. It’s the ideal finale to our Thanksgiving menu—an easy, no-mixer required crowd-pleaser, and, if there happens to be any left, the perfect bleary-eyed Friday breakfast. There have been years when we don’t convene at my parents house; when the cranberry sauce stains an unfamiliar tablecloth, when the weather outside may be balmier than we’re used to, and the traditions shift just a bit. But, this year, we’ll be back in Cambridge with those worn pages in hand, exactly where we belong.
