Diane Morgan - The New Thanksgiving Table

An American Celebration of Family, Friends, and Food

BY DIANE MORGAN
PHOTOGRAPHS BY LEIGH BEISCH

This book is dedicated to Greg, Eric, and Molly, for whom I give thanks every day.

Published exclusively for Williams-Sonoma by Chronicle Books LLC.

Text copyright 2008 by DIANE MORGAN.

Photographs copyright 2008 by LEIGH BEISCH.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available.

eISBN 978-1-4521-0022-7

Prop styling by SARA SLAVIN.
Food styling by SANDRA COOK.

Chronicle Books LLC
680 Second Street
San Francisco, CA 94107

http://www.chroniclebooks.com

I give thanks to my family, friends, and colleagues, remembering and acknowledging our meaningful relationships and cherished friendships that make my life so special and every day a blessing. I have a long important list of people deserving of a big thank you. I wish you all could fit around my Thanksgiving Tablewouldnt that be a celebration and feast!

To Bill LeBlond, my editor at Chronicle Books, for all his expert guidance, support, and time. Im thankful for this professional relationship and deeply grateful for our friendship.

To Lisa Ekus, my agent, for her amazing advice and enthusiasm. And to Jane Falla, Sarah Baurle, and everyone else at The Lisa Ekus Group for their dedicated support.

To Amy Treadwell, Peter Perez, Leslie Jonath, Amy Portello, Vanessa Dina, and the others at Chronicle Books, who have inspired, supported, publicized, and otherwise kept my projects on track. You are all delightful to work with. To Carrie Bradley, many thanks for copyediting my book with such care and precision.

To photographer Leigh Beisch and all the talented stylists, a huge thank you for your brilliant work.

To Cheryl Russell, my fabulous assistant, Im so thankful for you. Honestly, I dont know what Id do without you in the kitchen! Weve tested and re-tested so many recipes, I can hardly keep track of how many books weve worked on together. You make developing and testing recipes a pleasureeven through all the many pans of stuffing, pumpkin pies, and pounds of turkey.

To my friends Harriet and Peter Watson, for your friendship and unwavering support. I cant hug and thank you enough. You bring me joy, sanity, and much laughter even when really big deadlines are looming. It is a delight to have shared so many Thanksgiving meals together.

Many thanks to my friends, family, and colleagues: David Watson, Paola Gentry and Eric Watson, Richard and Barb LevKoy, Larry LevKoy, Irene LevKoy, Antonia Allegra, Don and Joan Fry, Domenica Marchetti, Charlie and Jeanne Sosland, Bruce and Ellen Birenboim, Steve and Marci Taylor, Sukey and Gil Garcetti, Roxane and Austin Huang, Margie Sanders, Priscilla and John Longfield, Karen Fong, Sherry Gable, Deb and Ron Adams, Summer Jameson, Tori Ritchie, Josie Jimenez, Joyce Goldstein, Laura Werlin, Barbara Dawson and Matthew Katzer, Tony Gemignani, Braiden Rex-Johnson, Michael Wehman, Janine MacLachlan, Lisa Morrison, Marjorie Taylor, and especially Alma Lach.

To Adair Lara for her talent, humor, and time as the photographer for my author photo.

Finally, this book wouldnt have been nearly as much fun to write without my loving and nurturing husband, Greg, sharing in all I do. To my children, Eric and Molly, thank you for all your love, humor, and caring every step of the way.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, no matter the season. Yes, thats season, not seasoning. Developing recipes involves countless hours, over many months, of cooking and tasting and writing. So there we were, my husband and I, enjoying an al fresco Thanksgiving dinner in May, followed by numerous other Thanksgiving feasts with family and friends in July, August, September, October, andat lastNovember!

Writing a holiday cookbook is especially rewarding because holidays always bring into sharp relief the real stuff of life: breaking bread with family and friends, sharing traditions, and creating memories. Being surrounded by loved ones around a holiday table is truly an occasion for giving thanks.

My earliest Thanksgiving memories involve growing up in Pittsburgh, where by late October nature had cast off its autumnal finery, so the weeks leading up to the holiday were typically cold and gray. But then it was Thanksgiving, and my grandmothers kitchen was ablaze in harvest color, and the entire house was infused with sweet and savory smells of the upcoming meal. On Thanksgiving Day, the youngest children, including me, would furtively stick black olives on our fingers and then run from the relish tray with great fanfare to devour our treasure.

After completing The Thanksgiving Table: Recipes and Ideas to Create Your Own Holiday Tradition in 2001, I thought I had written my definitive treatise on the subject. But then I crisscrossed America for several years teaching Thanksgiving cooking classes, and I was regularly struck by the regional variations that give Thanksgiving tables in different parts of the country their distinctive character and flair. In many ways, this new book is rooted in those travels, with boundless enrichment from the wonderful people I met along the wayin Hartford, Phoenix, Richmond, Carlsbad, Houston, Austin, Cleveland, and Salt Lake City, to name just a few of the cities where I happily carved, brined, barbecued, roasted, spatchcocked, mashed, and pured.

Thanksgiving is the one day of the year when nine out of ten Americans sit down to a home-cooked meal, and that meal, according to one survey, almost always features turkey. Depending on where you live, however, that turkey is roasted, smoked, grilled, deep-fried, or turned into the elaborate Cajun specialty known as turducken, in which a boned chicken is stuffed inside a boned duckling, which in turn is stuffed inside a boned turkey, along with stuffing, to boot! There are also regional preferences in seasonings: sage and garlic are perennial favorites in some parts of the country, while rosemary, paprika, and cloves seem to rule in the South.

The celebration that evolved into our national day of Thanksgiving has its origins in 1621, in a three-day harvest feast that English settlers in Plymouth, Massachusetts, shared with the indigenous Wampanoag tribe. According to historical documents, that First Thanksgiving meal was based on New England fall harvest foods, including seethed (boiled) lobster, roasted goose and boiled turkey, rabbit, pudding of Indian cornmeal, seethed cod, roasted duck and venison, and a savory pudding of hominy, along with fruit and cheese. As the country grew, that menu expanded and changed to incorporate the ingredients of other regions and the traditions of other native and immigrant cultures.

The New Thanksgiving Table: An American Celebration of Family, Friends, and Food commemorates this quintessential American holiday with a spotlight on the regional specialties that make this vast land of ours so gastronomically amazing. While the classic Thanksgiving meal includes turkey, cranberries, pumpkins, and root vegetables, those same ingredients have been reinterpreted in myriad ways that reflect the diversity and breadth of twenty-first-century America.