274 COMMENTS The Opinion Pages | OP-ED COLUMNIST When Italians Meet Turkey On Thanksgiving, an Abundance Thats About Much More Than Food NOV. 25, 2014 Photo Credit Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main story RECENT COMMENTS Greg Yesterday Your column literally brought tears to my eyes remembering the great Thanksgiving meals I had with family growing up. I love being an... Jennifer Mirsky Yesterday I have always maintained that pressing people to eat is a common characteristic of Italian and Jewish families. Whether one is being... Eddie Yesterday What? I thought the turkey was only for display and Friday sandwiches! I can never get past the meatballs and sausage. SEE ALL COMMENTS WRITE A COMMENT Frank Bruni Continue reading the main storyShare This Page Share Tweet Email Save More Continue reading the main story Thanksgiving Day is almost upon us, and I haven’t yet summoned the nerve to tell Uncle Mario and Aunt Carolyn, who host it, that I may not arrive until a quarter past noon. That’ll make me more than an hour late, which by my rough arithmetic translates into 12 chilled shrimp, 15 mozzarella balls, four meatballs, a medium-size plate of stuffed mushrooms and a sizable wedge of frittata. That’s an unthinkable magnitude of forgiveness to ask for. The Bruni family has a schedule, you see. A pace. It’s like a forced march, only a catered one, with prosciutto. We get going at 11 a.m. because we have no other choice if we’re to cram in all the necessary appetizers — and what I’ve described above isn’t even half of them — before we sit down to the main meal. It must commence by 1:30 p.m., lest we fail to do the dessert buffet at 3:15, the spread of sandwiches at 5:30 and the return of the dessert buffet at 6:45. “Buffet” doesn’t really cover it. “Burlesque” comes closer. To wit: My sister is making three pumpkin pies, and she’s one of maybe 10 guests bearing sweets. Aunt Vicki is baking another six pies — three apple and three pecan — to complement the cookies, brownies, cupcakes, cakes and tubs of ice cream that various other relatives contribute. We’re something like 40 people this year, but still. This could feed 400. Italian-Americans are a gluttonous tribe, and when we look at the calendar, we don’t see big moments and small ones, peaks and valleys. We see occasions to eat a lot and occasions to eat even more than that. And Thanksgiving, with its focus on food and its veneration of plenty, is the ultimate occasion, the utmost license, our culinary id unbound. It’s when we’re released from our paddocks, ovoid thoroughbreds allowed to hit full stride. One year I hobbled myself. I was trying hard to diet, and I actually showed up and murmured something about steering clear of carbohydrates, just this once. You could have heard a chicken cutlet drop. Cousins gaped. Nieces had tears in their eyes. Aunt Carolyn grabbed the edge of the turkey platter to steady herself. I’d cursed in the temple, and my penance was clear. I had two helpings of stuffing, along with a bulbous buttered yam. That’s a lie. I had helpings of two different kinds of stuffing. It’s a hallmark of Bruni Thanksgivings that there’s never just one of anything: no single vegetable, no solitary starch, no gargantuan turkey carrying the whole protein load. There’s usually an equally mammoth ham in the mix. There’s stuffing from inside the bird as well as stuffing from outside. One casserole of sweet potatoes has marshmallow on top; the other dispenses with that sugary hood. Someone might like a particular version best, so it must be there, along with the yams, and each alternative must exist in a quantity that would be sufficient if everyone decided at the last minute to eat it and only it. And pasta must appear at some point. We’re Italian. We have a duty. Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main storyContinue reading the main story Every so often there’s a suggestion that we cut back. This goes over about as well as my forswearing of carbohydrates did. Here’s the problem: Aunt Carolyn eliminates the mozzarella balls and someone invariably asks, “Where are the mozzarella balls?” She exiles the stuffed mushrooms and someone desperately canvasses every room and every table surface for them, as if searching for a lost kitten. She ditches the yams and someone goes into a yam funk. A yam funk won’t do. It’s Thanksgiving! So she serves everything that she did on previous years and maybe, to amuse herself, something additional, which she’s then committed to serving forevermore. There were Thanksgivings past when I considered all of this absurdly wasteful, outrageously unhealthful, even obscene. I saw us as a parody of ourselves, a plump cartoon. Now I just smile gratefully and chew. The cartoon’s meaning comes into ever sharper focus. It’s less about gluttony than about generosity. The calories are proxies for something else. Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Mario spread out everything that they do so that there can be no doubt about how much they treasure us. The rest of us bring everything that we do so that there can be no doubt about how much we treasure them. We Italian-Americans exalt food because we Italian-Americans exalt family. They’re intertwined. Indistinguishable. The day’s final image is always the same: Aunt Carolyn back in the kitchen, drained and triumphant, filling elaborate doggie bags so that each of us totes away enough white meat, dark meat, pasta, stuffing, corn, peas, pie and cookies to restage the meal at home a few times. If the eating doesn’t stop, the togetherness never ends. A version of this op-ed appears in print on November 26, 2014, on page A27 of the New York edition with the headline: When Italians Meet Turkey. Order Reprints| Todays Paper|Subscribe NEXT IN OPINION Remember the Sand Creek Massacre MOST EMAILED Op-Talk: What If We’re Wrong About Depression? P. D. James, Creator of the Adam Dalgliesh Mysteries, Dies at 94 Frank Bruni: When Italians Meet Turkey 2014 Holiday Gift Guide News Analysis: Obama Builds Environmental Legacy With 1970 Law Gail Collins: Counting Benghazi Blessings 36 Hours in Santa Fe Charles M. 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Posted on: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 10:56:48 +0000
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