Your most important holiday dish

Your most important holiday dish

By Craig Dresang

Passing a platter of roast turkey or a bowl of buttery mashed potatoes during a holiday dinner frequently includes the traditional passing of family tales as well. In fact, food can be the least important part of a special meal. Holidays, like Thanksgiving, are a sacred time for friends and family members from different generations to come together and share histories, relive common experiences, learn about and from each other, and connect.

In our family, whenever table talk veered into potentially controversial territory like politics or the 15-year-old cousin who got his girlfriend pregnant, my mom had a strategy for shifting the conversation to something less dangerous and more entertaining. One year, she handed out old photographs of relatives . . . some still living and others who were long gone. She then requested that each dinner guest tell a story about the person in the photograph they were holding.

My grandmother, holding a yellowed and tattered black and white photograph of someone that only she recognized, said, “Oh my! It’s my Great Uncle Charles.” Charles was born in 1831. Just after his 99th birthday in 1930, relatives gathered together for Thanksgiving at the family farmstead outside of Iron River, a tiny village in the northwoods of Wisconsin just 15 miles south of Lake Superior’s icy shoreline. In Charles’s time, Iron River was a rugged and rowdy boom town that was fueled by the sheer frontier energy of those who came to work in the region’s iron mines and lumber industry. Charles’s nephew worked for a relatively new company called Kellogg’s in Battle Creek, Michigan, and at the time, he was sending his Wisconsin relatives a new product called Corn Flakes. These flakes of corn were originally developed for patients at the Battle Creek Sanitarium, however, they quickly became popular with those who worked both in and outside the walls of that facility.

As a result, my grandmother’s mom felt fortunate to have received a new and interesting ingredient to test out in their kitchen. One of those dishes, being served at Thanksgiving dinner in 1930, included carrots, butter, shredded cheese and corn flakes. It was the first time Charles tasted this new carrot recipe and so with a mouthful of crunchy cheesy goodness he declared, “These carrots are to die for.” Two hours later he was still munching on leftover carrots while playing cards in a smoke-filled parlor with the other men. Outside, the wind was howling, and snow was accumulating rapidly. Holding his cards in one hand and a carrot in the other, he suddenly leaned forward and then dropped his head to the table. The other men thought he was joking around. My grandmother who was eighteen years old, recalls her father saying, “Come on Charles. Your hand can’t be that bad.” But to everyone’s surprise, he had died.

His death was complicated by the fact that there was a blizzard outside and every road out of town was impassable. The closest hospital or funeral home was an hour away during good weather. It was not feasible for the family to reach help on the eve of Thanksgiving in the middle of a northwoods blizzard. One of the cousins was a nurse so she checked his breathing and heartbeat, but felt nothing. His pupils were fixed and his eyelids were half open. Despite all attempts to shake him to life, he was indeed lifeless.
Not knowing what to do, the family nurse suggested they prop up Charles in a snowbank outside until the weather broke and help could arrive. So, my Great, Great, Great Uncle Charles spent his last Thanksgiving night in a snowbank after unintentionally naming the latest family recipe, “Carrots to Die For.” For nearly every Thanksgiving since, some relative has made this recipe with a side of family lore.
For families who are caring for, or recently lost, a loved one, food stories can be a powerful way to help an individual connect with their identity and sense of self. This is especially true for someone who is in their last days of life. Being able to engage with their own memories and convey who they are or what is important to them can foster communication, engagement, and sense of meaning. Sometimes stories can also deliver much needed levity or humor into the life of someone who is struggling.

In hospice, encouraging patients to share their stories is often highly therapeutic. The stories also become a treasured gift that they can pass on to the rest of the family. Holiday meals can serve as a conduit to feed a family the most important dishes of all: connection, meaning, history, and a dash of laughter during your own personal snowstorm.

It is in this spirit that I share a tiny bit of our family history and deliciousness: Carrots to Die For.

Carrots to Die For Recipe
Approximately 8 servings

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup crushed cornflakes
• 4 tablespoons softened butter
• 1/3 cup chopped onion
• 3-4 tablespoons flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1 cup of shredded Swiss cheese
• 4 1/2 cups cooked, sliced carrots (drained)
• 2 tablespoons fresh chopped parsley or 1 tablespoon parsley flakes

Combine cornflake crumbs and 1 tablespoon butter. Set aside. To three tablespoons of butter, add onion and sauté over low heat. Add flour, salt and pepper.Stir in milk. Increase heat to medium; cook until bubbly and thickened, stirring constantly. Add cheese and stir until smooth. Stir in carrots and parsley. Spread in shallow 1 1/2 quart baking dish. Sprinkle top with crumb mixture. Bake at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes or until bubbly and crumbs are golden brown.