We had a lovely Thanksgiving and we hope you did too. My last post, regarding the under-recognized sweet potato, was deemed offensive to the Facebook community, and the content was removed. Should you care to read that post, you will have to go directly to www.bensdaywednesday.com. I had no idea what a powerful PR machine the sweet potato had going. Lesson learned.
As you can see from this 2013 family portrait of my parents, we have a strong family tradition of honoring our root vegetables.
For our Thanksgiving meal this year, we made my mom’s recipe for sweet potato soufflé. You can see that I added a note one year questioning whether the sweet potato part should be doubled. The next year, I must have tried that (because 6 pounds of sweet potatoes is a great idea, right?) and then wrote my notation “No!” to guard against foolishness of the future.
The ubiquitous orange tubers I purchased at Wegmans for use in the recipe were labeled yams, but they were sweet, orange, and exactly what we expect a sweet potato to be. Is it possible that Wegmans has been mislabeling this product for years? Yams and sweet potatoes are not even from the same family. No wonder the sweet potato needs a whole month to get its story out there.
During our four day Thanksgiving-a-thon with family and friends, we avoided controversial topics (like yams vs, sweet potatoes) and had a great time. Ben doesn’t easily accept variations from tradition, thus his coinage of the phrase, “Not the different. Just the regular.” Turns out, he’s on to something. I think each one of us counts on different aspects of the fest, so it really is best not to mess with what works.
Ben’s contribution to the festivities was, as usual, his insistence on serving charcuterie. I yam what I yam.
Today, as usual, we move on. We spend the day dismantling fall and decorating for Christmas. Naysayers may scoff at our rush to bring on the holiday or shudder at the secular trappings of an over-commercialized holiday. We say that if Christmas decorations bring us joy, why not? How would we appreciate January’s calm peace without seeing Christmas in every nook and cranny for the next month?