Thanksgiving (Canadian)

So, I got invited to a Thanksgiving by some Americans through my partner. I couldn't help but tweak the noses of the guests. I had an inkling that there were days of thanks that existed before the so-called American Thanksgiving.

I knew about the Order of Good Cheer (L'Ordre de Bon Temps) instituted by Champlain in what is now Nova Scotia in 1605. Basically, it was a drunk fest carried out in the winter to prevent scurvy. Riiiiiiight! More likely a good reason to party to prevent them from going stir crazy. That is before the first Thanksgiving in United States of America in 1621. Was there even an earlier date?

According to some historians, there is a feast of Thanksgiving made by Sir Martin Frobisher in 1578. He is the guy that brought fool's gold to Europe and got a bunch of people excited to go. Also, another fool looking for the Northwest passage. He had tried two times before and was trying again. He was thankful that they got that far and weren't dead yet. That's something to be thankful for, I guess.

There had already been Thanksgiving days before. Monarchs were thanking the Lord for victories in wars and stuff, so it wasn't strictly the harvest festival that we attach to the day now. Even on that strict idea, there were already folks here who celebrated the end of the harvest.  Maybe it was the last big blast before winter. (Nah, see Champlain above. It wasn't all his idea for the feasts. I seem to recall an article in the Believer or maybe Lucky Peach which suggested part of the idea was from the indigenous folk.)

Anyway, that all predates 1621. The argument was that was the first date that a harvest festival by Europeans with the indigenous people exist. I call foul. Hell, there is American contention over that date on whether there was a church service or not. Always moving goal posts. But in Canada, we have our feast earlier in the year and probably earlier in history.

So, from some accounts, if we use Fool's Gold Frobisher, there was a meal of salt beef, mushy peas and biscuits. What the hell could I do with that?

Test Pie. See below for the rest of the story

Well, there is meat pie. Instead of a recipe, I am going to put together the dish in front of you. Couldn't find salt beef, so used corned beef. I already wanted to make it more or less period without adding a lot of modern frills, so no onions. Corned beef does have black pepper but black pepper isn't from the "New World". Seems funny in this day and age to say things that New World, so we will stop with that. Most spices were from North America, South America, and a lot of the islands between the two. So, it was just corned beef. 

Corned beef with a gravy

Remember they used to have barrels of this stuff on ships. I remember seeing corned beef in plastic pails labelled salt beef. Just couldn't find it this time round. I should have went to the Newfoundland grocery store. I'm sure it still has the stuff in stock most times.

The cooked corn beef 

So after that was cooked, I made a gravy with butter and flour roux and added the water that I cooked the beef in. It had salt, pepper and all the good stuff from the beef. 

Tasted good just like that. I could have added mustard and maybe some vinegar but wanted to keep it super simple.

Mushy peas next.

Mushy peas. They aren't quite what I thought they were. They are dried split peas that are soaked and then cooked. Add some salt and butter and there you are. They were starchier that I thought and were very hearty. I could imagine how this could be a feast food when combining with meat and fresh bread. But my, is it heavy. If you cook the peas too much, well, that's your Habitant soup in a can. I have some of that. Homemade but still pea soup. Like it but it isn't something that I would say is a thankful dish unless you are cold, spent a long time on the water and almost died. 

The biscuit topping uncooked

And finally, a biscuit crust. Simple biscuit recipe. Not much to say. I use this often on leftover meats like turkey or chicken. Which reminds me, that is something you can do with leftover turkey. Maybe this isn't a late Thanksgiving post but rather a prescient leftovers post. Hunh! Yeah, you are making this for supper this week. The whole thing takes as much time as to make the biscuit mix and cook it. (350 for 45 minutes plus prep time). About the same amount of time to get your kids away from video games or television. 

After all that. I didn't take a pic of the final coming out of the oven. I could take a pic of the two leftover pieces in my fridge but that is unfair to it. Seriously, try something like this with your leftovers. Really good. 

Liver.

Yup. always appetizing...

So, I had this bit of liver...

Stories I could tell:

Story 1:
Reminder of family: I used three pounds of liver that is one of the few things left over from my separation of three years ago this year. I stopped cooking family food for a while and this is part of me getting brave again. A healing thing as we gear up for the divorce proceedings.

Rejected: Two dismal. Yeah, yeah, another father makes it through separation and divorce by cooking. Boo-fucking-hoo.

Story 2:
Childhood reflections: The coppery smell and taste of liver reminds me of my dad. He liked liver and onions and would make it on occasion. I can remember how he cooked it and how I didn't like the smell. I would recognize that as an ethnic smell  now. And the taste -- even though it shares a flavour with fresh venison, I never got used to it.

Rejected: Maudlin and too often a goto for me.

Story 3:
Health benefits: It is good for you. Especially if it is free range, grass fed and organic. When I was growing up, we just ate the liver from the cows that were raised on my grandmother or my uncle's farm. No such thing as this high falutin' labels. Things were better. Liver is good.

Rejected: It is such a crock of shit with this foodie fascism and the weird sanctimony that comes with the fetishism of organic. The reality is that only middle class and above can really eat like this in the city. It is false to pretend that I would be eating this without the fact that it came from a meat order thrown in because no one uses liver any more.

Regardless. I took the liver and made it into a pate. It was seasoned heavily with allspice. This slab of fat was used in making Bahn Mi sandwiches and used by itself for bread and crackers. The thing is; it made a lot. So much so that there is still some in the freezer waiting for me to try to do something with it. I may try cutting it and frying it while it is still frozen. I think it could work like creton.

It has a strong coppery flavour and it is hard to miss that it is liver but in a good way. I guess I will have to try it and see.