With Thanksgiving quickly approaching, I wanted to be sure to post some recipes that could be brought to your table for the holiday. I am not making a turkey this year so I didn’t try this Dressing for Turkeys, but from reading the list of ingredients, I’m figuring it could feed your family, your neighbors’ families and still have some leftovers for the rest of the weekend.
I thought it was interesting that the person who wrote this labeled it with “Thanksgiving 1949.” Since I wasn’t around at that time and don’t have a personal recollection of the day, I thought I’d turn to my new best friend Google and find out what was going on. I’m figuring Google must be a guy because all he wanted to talk about was football. If your house is anything like the ones I visit on Thanksgiving, the television is always blaring with the sounds of a football game. This is, of course, after we watch the Macy’s Day Parade to see if this will finally be the year that the Snoopy balloon escapes and flies his Sopwith Camel to England to spread gratitude to the Old World.
I always figured that they aired football games to give guys an excuse for why they can’t help out with dinner. Apparently, this excuse has been around longer than I thought, as far back as 1891 in fact. An article printed in Harper’s Weekly that year talked of the importance of watching Princeton play Yale. The tradition of watching football caught on and by 1949, two million television sets were tuned to the game. I did a little more research to find out that the Chicago Bears played the Detroit Lions in 1949 and won 28 to 7. That year was a pretty decent year for the Bears. It was their 30th regular season, they played under Coach George Halas, their games were at Wrigley Field and they finished 2nd in their division.
Sadly, 2009 doesn’t look as promising for the Bears. But I don’t get to watch my home team play this year. Instead, my husband’s favorite team, the Green Bay Packers (a rival of the Bears), will be playing the Detroit Lions in one of three games played on Thanksgiving Day. Apparently, guys thought football was such a great excuse for why they couldn’t help make dinner, they added a few games to extend the excuse as to why they couldn’t help clean up either. Sorry guys, we’re onto your little ruse.
You did your research, how fun! I love google.
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering if this person who had these recipes worked at a restaurant? This recipe is huge! Or maybe they had both sets of family over. Anyway, it was nice that the date is on there. Happy Thanksgiving!