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To begin with, I came from a small Irish family. Secondly, the Irish could never cook even if their lives depended on it. Our family dinners weren’t horrid, it was just that the available choice and fare was rather limited. Limited by the fact the Irish can’t cook anything besides the simplest meat and potato type dishes.
As a kid, my mom would cook this each and every year. A turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, disgusting squash and that bouncy, cylindrical thingy called Ocean Spray cranberry sauce. Now all the food she cooked was pretty decent, but that squash…ugh.
The problem with squash was that when put on your plate, some of the liquid would run into the other food on your plate. In my child’s mind, it would poison and ruin the other food there. I’d sit there deftly pushing the squash to a part of the plate where it couldn’t leech into my other food that I did like. On top of that, it was a vegetable and as a kid, all vegetables tasted like newly cut grass to me. Vegetables were vile weeds.
The Italians revolve around food. We Irish used the food as an excuse to drink beer. As dinner was finished, we kids would be chased from the table so the adults could do what they really wanted to do on Tday, drink. My Dad, Mom, Grandparents and the occasional Uncle would sit there getting gooned. Though my Mom was a lightweight, she couldn’t handle more than three Narragansett beers total. My Uncle on the other hand could drink the brewery.
As we got older, Thanksgiving day meant getting sloshed ourselves. My brother and I would attend the yearly St Raphael/Tolman HS football game at McCoy stadium at 10 am. We did this for three years and each time we’d smuggle in the cheapest Popov vodka. We two weren’t the only ones in the crowd who were feeling no pain. I can remember a kid I knew in high school, Tim C., who fell down the stairs at McCoy and didn‘t feel a thing.
Ever drink yourself into oblivion at 11am? You can if your 15. You’re far too dumb to know otherwise. One time, my brother and I became soo drunk, that we got lost driving home from McCoy stadium. Want to know how bad that is? McCoy stadium is about 1/2 of a mile from my house and my brother was too silly drunk to figure out the drive. That was back when you could drive completely sloshed without much fear of being charged with DWI. Boy, how things have changed!
In our 20’s, Tday was becoming a hindrance to us. My brother and I would bolt the food down and head out of the door as we had “better things to do” than hang around with the parents and grandparents who were boring anyway. Again, culture comes into it. We Irish have “roving wakes” and roving Tday parties. We go from house to house to visit friends and have a drink or two. We’d be offered food but of course, that’s not what Tday is for…is it? Well, not for Pawtucket Irish it wasn’t.
It wasn’t until I was working in Western Cranston did I see what a “real” Thanksgiving was. Cranston is full of Italians and when I was working there, I saw the spread these people put out! I was amazed! These people used beer and wine to wash down the buckets of food they’d prepare and DEMAND you eat.
Let me tell you how bad the Irish are. I thought ravioli came from a can till I attended a Tday party on Phoenix ave in Cranston in 1987. Provolone cheese? I thought there was only “Kraft” cheese! There was course after course of food and very little drinking, now how weird is that?
So, enjoy your Tday, watch the Macy’s Day parade. And if you’re going to drink, pass out on the floor and become the joke to your family, it’s cheaper than hiring a lawyer.
