From the Ground Up

Cranberries a Thanksgiving favorite

Story by Dr. Cynthia Wood

All over the world, food is an important part of most celebrations. What’s served may vary from country to country, but there is always something special.

In Japan, KFC is the special go-to treat for Christmas, while in England it’s steamed plum pudding with hard sauce.

Here, Christmas often features homemade cookies and a standing rib roast, ham or turkey. There is usually glorious excess.

Thanksgiving is no different. Almost everyone serves some combination of roast turkey, gravy, stuffing (or dressing), potatoes, sweet potatoes, and green beans or Brussel sprouts, as well as pumpkin and pecan pie.

Here in Virginia oysters are a frequent addition to the menu. In addition, there’s almost always cranberry sauce. It’s one of those side dishes, like olives, celery, and carrots, considered an essential part of the celebration. Even though many people don’t particularly like it, everyone serves it anyway.

Cranberry sauce wasn’t part of the original colonial celebration, but it’s been around for a long time. The Art of Cookery by Amelia Simmons, which was published in the late 1700s, included a recipe for the tart/sweet sauce. Sugar was expensive, and cranberries were a fragile fruit that didn’t keep well, so cranberry sauce was a luxury available to only a few consumers.

By the early 1900s, however, someone had figured out a more efficient way to harvest cranberries, and commercially canned cranberry sauce was developed as a way to use damaged fruit. By the early 1940s, commercially canned cranberry sauce was available nationwide.

The big question today isn’t whether to serve cranberry sauce, but how to serve it. There are several options, each with many devotees. Some purists insist that the only possible way to serve cranberry sauce is the canned, jellied form that slips so easily from the container and can be served on a bed of lettuce as a perfect ruby-colored cylinder or sliced into rounds and garnished with nuts or whatever the cook has handy.

Others insist that the newer, canned chunky version is far superior. It’s pourable, not stiff like the original, thus making it an excellent addition to post-dinner turkey and stuffing sandwiches. And then, still others claim that the best cranberry sauce is homemade — either a cooked version that resembles the chunky canned product or a coarsely ground raw version containing sugar, cranberries, and a whole orange. There are usually recipes for both of these homemade sauces found on most packages of fresh cranberries. They’re highly adaptable to most families’ preferences.

When my crew gathers, we always have two cranberry sauces: the canned jellied one that some guests swear is the only one worth eating and then another homemade one containing enough Southern Comfort to make most people forget that they’re eating cranberries. It’s good on sandwiches, but also for breakfast with sausages, and even just for snacking.

It’s guaranteed to induce a state of well being that no other form of cranberry sauce can duplicate.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Another approach to the cranberry dilemma is to put them in bread or pie, a new tradition.

In some families, there is a strong preference for the smooth canned version that slips easily from the container and can be cut into slices.

Whole cranberry sauce is easy to make and can be modified with orange zest, Southern Comfort, and nuts.

A very different Thanksgiving

Story by Titus Mohler Photos submitted

This has been a year in which almost everyone has seen convention set aside in order to protect themselves and each other from the novel coronavirus.

Safety regulations put in place to limit the spread of COVID-19 have left little room for the familiar. However, in the spring and summer, there was hope we would experience a return to normalcy by the fall and winter months — a return to tradition in a season marked by tradition.

Alas, the pandemic and the safety concerns surrounding it have persisted into the fall, and it is becoming clear that many families’ holiday traditions are going to become the latest conventions that have to be set aside.

Following are glimpses at how Thanksgiving 2020 for three families in the area will be altered, offering an idea of the experiences many families will likely be going through this holiday season.

JAMES BAKER AND FAMILY

James Baker is a teacher with Prince Edward County Public Schools. He is in his 44th year as an athletics coach, though everything has been restricted to video conferencing thus far in the 2020-21 school year.

He already has some understanding of what his Thanksgiving will be like this year.

“It’s not going to be business as usual, because I’m an older individual and I have underlying conditions,” he said.

Baker, 67, has already gotten into the habit of approaching gatherings differently this year.

“Sometimes things are going on that you want to be supportive of, but at the same time, you’re kind of looking to see who’s coming, how many people are going to

James Baker and his eight siblings gather for a group picture at a prepandemic family gathering. With age and health conditions creating some vulnerability to COVID-19, they will be showing their love for one another by adjusting their plans this Thanksgiving and likely avoiding the proximity they are practicing in this photo. Pictured are, from left, front row: Alberta Bolden, Loretta Cottrell and Josephine Boatwright. Back row: Penny Baker, Amanda Duncan, James Baker, John Baker, Evelyn Baker and Margaret Baker.

Lynnea Motter and her family enjoy one of their Thanksgiving traditions in this pre-2020 photo. They typically attend a game featuring the Hershey Bears, an American Hockey League team, on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, and participate in a hockey shootout for prizes on the ice afterward. They do not anticipate being able to do that this year. Holding up tickets stating what they won are, from left, front row: Nathan Motter and Barrett Motter. Middle row: Lynnea’s mother-in-law Diane Motter and Lynnea Motter. In back: Charlie Motter.

be there, because you can’t really just outright expose yourself to a whole lot of stuff if you don’t really know what you’re facing,” he said.

It is similar to his situation with school.

“On the one hand, you want to get the kids back (in person), and on the other hand, you’re like, ‘Whoa, how’s that going to be?’” he said.

Baker comes from a big family that likes to gather in Buckingham County, which they have all lived in and around most of their lives.

“I have eight siblings, so usually at the holidays, we will all get together along with them and sometimes other people,” he said. “So now what’s probably going to happen is when we get together, it’ll be a little more intimate, with fewer of the other people coming in together with us.”

This general standard has already led to less travel this year for Baker.

“As far as those large gatherings, traveling places and stuff like that, boy I’ve saved a lot of gas this summer,” he said.

It is tradition for all nine siblings to be together either on Thanksgiving Day or Christmas Day and sometimes both. This tradition will likely continue this year but with fewer extended family members present and with new safety measures in place.

“We’ll social distance and that type of thing, and we’ve done a little bit of it this year where we’ve gotten together,” Baker said. “We’re not throwing (precautions) to the wind, because like I said we’re older and we have underlying conditions, so it’s like you want to be together, but at the same time, you’ve got to take precautions with masks and stuff like that.”

He indicated that he and his family have been blessed so far by “taking precautions and just trying to use a little bit of common sense.”

LYNNEA MOTTER AND FAMILY

Lynnea Motter is also a teacher for Prince Edward County Public Schools (PECPS), and she has two children in the school system.

Whether or not in-person classes are back in session in November will have a significant impact on Motter family Thanksgiving plans.

“I don’t even know what we’re doing for Thanksgiving this year,” Motter said. “My mother has significant health issues, so if we are back (at school) in person, I guess we could just say I’m looking at our Thanksgiving plans, and I don’t think they’re going to be the same.”

Usually the Motters travel for Thanksgiving, first going to Pennsylvania to visit one side of the family and then going to Washington, D.C., to visit the other side.

Top, Jesse Test, left, and Alex Wood enjoy a moment during Thanksgiving in the kitchen, where they are socially distanced from other rooms in the house where family members are dining. Middle, Lyla Wood’s family had already been in the practice of exercising COVID-era safety precautions at its Thanksgiving gatherings due to health conditions of different family members. The family distances by room. Pictured here, from left, Thomas Test, Tonya Burgess and Lori Test enjoy Thanksgiving dinner in the dining room, which is socially distanced from the living room and the kitchen. Some even spread out on the outdoor deck. Above, Lyla Wood, left, and her stepson, Thomas Test, participate in another family Thanksgiving tradition — they hunt before and after. This is simply another part of Wood and her family’s Thanksgiving tradition that will be unaltered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We have to really weigh the risk of working and then possibly infecting family members,” Lynnea said.

It’s not just the fact that she has a potentially vulnerable young niece and a father who she would not want to infect and sideline from his essential job as an anesthesiologist. Lynnea and her husband, Charlie, also have a son with health complications.

Their younger son, Nathan, was born in January 2009 and had not even been alive a year before having to battle another well-known virus — 2009 H1N1, sometimes called “swine flu.”

“When H1N1 came around, he was too young to get the vaccination, because you have to be 1, and he was 11 months,” Lynnea said. “So he actually got H1N1 and spent two weeks in the hospital. The midpoint of his hospital stay was his first birthday. He was on a ventilator for his first birthday.”

Now while contending with COVID-19, Lynnea said she and her family are super cautious about making sure that if they are doing anything with people, they are doing it outside.

“I haven’t been in an enclosed space with someone that’s not my immediate family since March (without masks and social distancing),” she said.

She then shared something about Thanksgiving 2020 that she had kept contained to her thoughts until that moment.

“I don’t see how we can go back to work and still have Thanksgiving safely as a family,” she said. “It’s really stressful to even think about it. That’s the first time I said that out loud.”

In saying this, Motter was helping shed light on the difficult and emotional situation many families are facing as the holiday season approaches.

A big part of the challenge is the prospect of more isolation from loved ones they are used to seeing frequently after isolation has already been the theme for most of the year.

“We missed Easter,” Motter said. “We stayed home for Easter. Nobody was willing to risk it for Easter. We missed my son’s birthday. His grandparents didn’t see him for his birthday. I haven’t seen my niece since Christmas.”

She and her family met with her parents and her husband’s parents once this year, outdoors, only after some strategic planning.

“Now we’re looking at a holiday season of this, and if we’re looking (at) Thanksgiving to Christmas, it’s really kind of painful to think about not being able to see our family or trying to figure out how we could do it,” she said. “It would be one thing if it was over the summer and we could picnic again.”

But the weather in November and December is not typically ideal for an outdoor arrangement like that.

So as things stand in early October, Motter said she was not sure if her family would be making its usual Thanksgiving trip.

“Let’s see what happens, I guess,” she said.

LYLA WOOD AND FAMILY

Compared to many families, Lyla Wood and her family, of Buckingham County, have had a very different response this year when faced with the COVID-19 pandemic and the recommended safety measures accompanying it.

“It’s nothing new for us,” Wood said.

Because of certain family members having autoimmune issues, Wood and her family have already been regularly practicing some of the precautions that are brand new to other families this year.

“I have Crohn’s (disease) and a couple other (related) issues,” Wood said. “My father-in-law is retired from the military and he’s older and has some health issues from serving and just different things.”

One of the regular measures Wood and her family have practiced at get-togethers, like Thanksgiving, is social distancing.

She noted the family will distance by room, with part of the family eating in the dining room, which is socially distanced from the living room and the kitchen. Usually there will be a maximum of six people in the dining room and six to eight in the living room.

Wood described what it is like when Thanksgiving dinner is served.

“It’s kind of kids first and get them in another room, and depending on the weather, there are some out on the porch, sitting on the porch swings and whatever, eating, and some at the dining room table and some sitting at the kids’ table and on the sofa,” she said. “They’re everywhere.”

Wood does not host, but she and her family do not have to travel far for Thanksgiving.

“I’m very fortunate that my mother-in-law lives right down at the bottom of the hill from me, and she has a huge home,” Wood said. “She’s got space for everyone. Like I said, we still have to spread out, but even spreading out, there’s room for the whole crew.”

She said their typical Thanksgiving gathering involves anywhere from 20 to 30 people.

In addition to health conditions, there are also other factors that contribute to the unique mindset Wood and her family have had when it comes to holiday gatherings.

“Also coming from a family that has a military background and also long-haulover-the-road truck drivers, when there’s an opportunity that you can actually get everybody together, we take it,” Wood said.

Her stepson, Thomas Test, is in the Navy and has been stationed in Japan. She is hopeful he will be coming back to the U.S. in time to join the family for Thanksgiving, but upon his return, he will have to quarantine before he even goes on base.

“He’s military so they have their precautions they always have to follow,” Wood said. “It’s just something we typically do anyway. If somebody’s sick, yeah, they kind of stay back, miss out, might stay home, but a plate’s always brought in (to them).”

She said her sister-in-law also works in a hospital setting, so she is saturated in a culture that emphasizes not bringing something infectious home to Dad.

“We’ve got it all the way around, so it’s nothing new for us,” Wood said.

What is familiar to Wood and her family is less familiar to many, though, which means Thanksgiving will have the distinction of being a very different holiday this year for most.

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