My Grandma was definitely not your typical American grandmother. Of poor German stock, she had spent the years of World War Two in some part of Yugoslavia. I could only remember the name of her village, Gocova, and had even tried to look it up in an atlas once, but had no earthly idea of how to spell it or even in what region it was. My mother and father had scrimped and saved to bring her over after the war and she eventually settled on the south side of Chicago in a quiet residential neighborhood with my uncle. You could take grandma out of the village, but you couldn't take the village out of grandma. She had that grasping, hungry, selfish way that years of enough to eat and a warm house to sleep in had never overcome. My sisters and I always dreaded making the trip from the north side to spend holidays at grandma’s. To begin with, she didn't let us be children - no running, no noise, no other children around the quiet well manicured neighborhood, nothing to do. Children were expected to sit and be quiet. No watching television, unless it was wrestling, of all things, and the magazines were all in German. But the worst of it was the meals we lived through. Lived through was the way I always thought of meals at grandma’s. Supper was always chicken paprikas, not the delicious and wonderful chicken paprikas I would discover quite by accident later in life, but a mean spirited watery concoction that offered little as food and even less for the soul. The recipe was engraved on my memory. First, she cut up the chicken and put the best parts in the refrigerator for her and my uncle to eat later. Then she took out a big pot, filled it with water and threw in a few pathetic potatoes and perhaps an onion. If any seasonings, such as salt and pepper or even paprika, went in the water it was never so much that anyone might notice or remember. The chicken itself was what I remember most. The backs, necks, and wings were thrown in and boiled until everything was done and what meat there was fell off the bones along with the ghastly pallid chicken skins. The thought of one particular Thanksgiving comes to mind. Our family had usually avoided Thanksgiving at grandma’s, but this one year, when I was ten years old, was an exception. Upon learning that we were going to grandma’s for Thanksgiving, my sisters and I faced the prospect with what could only be described as utter gloom. Then our mother informed us that grandma would be making turkey.
Our grandma? I had asked several times incredulously and was assured each time that it was true. My grandmother was actually going to make a turkey. My sisters and I sat in the back seat of the family car and wondered at that fact the whole trip down to the south side. We had arrived around noon. Shortly afterward, I wandered into the kitchen to see what, if anything, was going on. In the middle of the kitchen table was a rather large, pale, and as yet completely uncooked turkey. It was only after I was an adult that I learned from my mother that she had bought the turkey for grandma. Thinking back again, I remembered that even at ten, I knew a thing or two about cooking turkeys. There were preparations that had to be made. Stuffing, and vegetables, and potatoes, and cranberry jelly, and rolls. And turkeys took hours in the oven and had to be basted while a wonderful aroma would fill the kitchen. I remembered getting hungry and also worried. Then grandma had begun to cut up the turkey. She put the good parts in the refrigerator. Out came the big pot, in went a few potatoes and the back . . . the neck . . . and the wings. Turkey paprikas!
I hope your own family’s Thanksgiving dinner is a traditional one with all the trimmings and one that, perhaps, you might be even more thankful for than usual.
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