Now that my workout is done and while I drip dry a bit before showering the grime off and then getting the turkey I spatchcocked and wet rubbed last night in the oven, and since we could use a new open thread, I figured I’d regale you all with the story behind the cornbread stuffing I’ve previously mentioned my family makes for Thanksgiving. So here goes:
When my parents got engaged they were living in Columbus, OH. Mom had just finished her SLP masters and was starting to practice and dad was finishing his doctorate. Both at THE Ohio State University. That year – 1966 I think – they decided they were going to invite a bunch of people over for Thanksgiving dinner. Mom figured that roasting a turkey was basically roasting a really big chicken, so all that was needed was to scale the cooking time up for the larger weight and size. But stuffing, well that was a huge mystery. So she decided to ask the nurses at the hospital where she was working. One of the social workers, Bessie King Jackson, came through without blinking an eye. Up until I decided to do this post, I never really knew much of Mrs Jackson’s history. All mom has ever related, largely because I’m sure it is all mom ever knew, is that Bessie was Black, a social worked, and from West Virginia. To help out my mom, Bessie Jackson wrote out a cornbread stuffing recipe on a 3X5 index card and gave it to a 26 year old Jewish woman from Queens and Silverman family Thanksgiving dinners have fortunately never been the same!
We still have that faded, slightly tattered and stained note card in a plastic sleeve stuck to the fridge at my mom’s house with a magnet. It travelled with her from Columbus to Tampa. From an apartment to now five different houses over her life in Tampa and one in Denver when my dad took sabbatical and went home for a year. Copies of the recipe, typed out, then emailed, and now saved as word, pages, and pdf documents, have travelled to Scotland with me when I was in grad school, then Philadelphia, Little Rock, NY, and Carlisle. My brother has it too, but he’s basically never left Florida, so his copy doesn’t travel far.
When I lived in Scotland, I used the recipe when my flat mates asked me if I’d roast them a turkey one year for Christmas as goose was too expensive. So off I went to the Saint Andrews Safeway and had a chat with the butcher who had to special order me a fresh turkey as it would have to be brought in from Edinburgh or Glasgow. We got to chatting and he asked how I was going to do it, trying to steer me to something more traditional like a roast so he wouldn’t have to do the paperwork for the special order. I explained what I was going to do with it, what I was going to serve with it, and then his eyes lit up. His wife was assembling a cook book of recipes that people had collected in their families over the years and the minute I finished telling the cornbread stuffing story he said: “I’ll get you that turkey, how many pounds do you want it, if you’ll give me the cornbread stuffing recipe and the story for my wife’s cookbook.” I made that deal! The butcher was thrilled, his wife was thrilled, and my flat mates and their guests were thrilled.
When I was deployed in Iraq, one of the last things I did before redeploying at the end of my tour was help the 2nd Brigade Combat Team/1st Armored Division plan a Thanksgiving dinner that would invite and include a variety of local Iraqis we’d been dealing with. I made sure the officer overseeing the kitchen prep got a copy of Beasie Jackson’s cornbread stuffing recipe. Since I redeployed home the week before Thanksgiving – I’d promised my mom when I left for pre-deployment training in August 2007 I’d be home for Thanksgiving 2008 – I’m not sure if they were able to make it scale for an entire BCT plus invited guests as I was back home eating my mom’s cornbread stuffing.
I’ve made Bessie Jackson’s cornbread stuffing in multiple countries. Every year at USAWC, I’d invite my international students, any others – American officers or internationals – that didn’t have invites or plans from their sponsors/advisors, and anyone else in the resident course who was stuck in town with nowhere to go to my house for Thanksgiving. Mom would fly up for the holiday – I made her walk the entirety of Pickett’s charge one year when we went to Gettysburg the day after Thanksgiving, she was prepared to surrender to the Union before we even got to the halfway mark! – and of course make Bessie Jackson’s cornbread stuffing. Lieutenant colonels to major generals from Nepal, Kenya, Algeria, Turkey, Kuwait, and all over the US have had it.
I have no idea how old Bessie Jackson was when she passed the recipe on to my mom. Since I had no idea if she’s still alive, I decided I’d put my keyword-fu to the test and I found her obituary, which I’ll copy and paste below. I have no idea if she had kids or anyone in their families used her cornbread stuffing recipe. But I do know there would be no Thanksgiving in a Silverman home without it. Whether we’re all in the same place or we’re in different states or countries, my mom, my brother and his family, and I all make this every Thanksgiving. My nephews know how to make it, so when we all go, there will still be Silverman’s making and eating Bessie Jackson’s cornbread stuffing on Thanksgiving.
And here’s the woman who without knowing it has made 50 plus years of Thanksgiving dinners special for my family. I’ll help mom try to track down any of her kids or grandkids and let them know. She had an amazing life and did a lot of good in addition to helping my mom make a successful Thanksgiving dinner.
Bessie King Jackson, child welfare advocate for more than 47 years, departed this life Sunday, February 6, 2005, after a brief hospitalization. Born July 11, 1930 in Hot Coal, WV to Simon Peter and Mary Bell Pannell King, she was the youngest of nine children. Received a BA from West Virginia State College and a Masters in Social Work from The Ohio State University. Her compassion for bringing about change was evident in every aspect of her life. Founder and director of the Bethune Center for Teenage Families, president of the Evening Star Missionary Society at Hosack Street Baptist Church, a past president and Executive Committee member of Ohio’s AARP, member of the Central Ohio Area Agency on Aging Advisory Council, a committed member of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority for more than 50 years, appointed by Governor Taft to the Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Task Force, a former Court Appointed Special Advocate for the Court of Domestic Relations, Juvenile Division, and in 2004 was inducted into Ohio’s Senior Citizen Hall of Fame. Preceded in death by husband, Garland. Survived by daughters, Garlena Jackson, Jerri (Lawrence) Jackson-Fowlkes, and Patty Jackson; grandchildren, Leighton, Candice, Cedric, Jhamerra, John, Kayelin, Vivica, Jasmine, and one great-granddaughter, Laniyah; sister-in-law, Juanita King; cousins, Richard and Sara Johnson; a host of other relatives and friends. Service of Memory 9:30 a.m. Saturday, February 12, 2005 at Hosack Street Baptist Church, 1160 Watkins Road. Pastor Daryl Hairston, officiating. Mrs. Jackson will lie in state Friday 12 – 4 p.m. at DIEHL-WHITTAKER FUNERAL & CREMATION SERVICE, 720 E. Long Street and after 6 p.m. at the church, where the family will receive friends from 7-9 p.m. Interment Glen Rest Memorial Estate. In lieu of flowers, friends may contribute to the Bessie King Jackson Memorial Fund, c/o Huntington National Bank, 17 South High Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215.Published by The Columbus Dispatch on Feb. 10, 2005.
A happy and healthy Thanksgiving to all of you! And if any of our readers in the Columbus, OH area know any of Mrs Jackson’s children or grandchildren, feel free to share this with them. And let them know that every year at Thanksgiving we honor their mother’s/grandmother’s memory and give thanks that she helped my mother out with her generosity.
Open thread!
And the recipe is in the comments.
Wag
What an awesome story! I’d love to help spreading the recipe!
Yutsano
Wow…Bessie had quite the life eh?
Kent
After all that buildup are you going to share the recipe or keep it secret?!
JPL
Where’s the recipe? I did make a gluten free version of Kamala’s recipe. It was pretty good.
Feathers
Realized this year that the recipe I need to get is my grandmother’s orange jello with mandarin orange segments. It wasn’t clear, but it wasn’t one of the cream cheese ones I found online.
Cameron
That’s a perfect Thanksgiving story. Wonderful.
Ken
Shouldn’t this be saved for Balloon Juice After Dark?
JPL
@Feathers: hah A friend and I were talking about that same recipe earlier. My son loved it when he was younger, and someday I want to make it again now that he’s a husband and a dad. I lost it though.
Urza
I love cornbread. Would really like to see the recipe for this as it sounds like the best possible stuffing i’ve ever considered.
Mary G
@Wag: Such a lovely story of how our good and generous deeds can live after us. Yes, I would love to see the recipe itself.
Wag
@JPL: We did as well. Very good.
Feathers
@JPL: My cousin put together a family recipe cookbook as a bridal shower thing. I lost mine. Figured I’ll ask my sister if she still has hers.
Note to folks: non crappy bridal shower thing is to ask everyone for their favorite family recipe. Print out a cookbook. Give to everyone there and people who couldn’t come. Great way to bring families together. See someone ten years later and say, “Oh I make your crab casserole all the time.”
Salty Sam
I’ve got cornbread stuffing in the oven as I type, it’s the ONLY way I’ve ever done stuffing (I do embellish it at times). I LOVE the story Adam…
Steeplejack (phone)
Adam previously posted the recipe here.
JPL
@Feathers: That would be great.
JPL
@Steeplejack (phone): The only thing I didn’t buy for Thanksgiving is turkey broth. The brand they carried was over six dollars, and I said chicken broth will do just fine.
Lyrebird
@Feathers: My grandmother would make cranberry jello with a red fruit yogurt mixed in, like strawberry or raspberry. Worth a try for yours. More like mousse if you mix the yogurt in as soon as the jello cools a tiny bit. More marbled if you mix it in later.
Lyrebird
PS: and thank you Adam for celebrating a momentous life as well as your telling more about your travels! Have a happy!
Matt McIrvin
@Feathers: My grandmother made lime Jello with green beans in it, because: green. I’m not sure anyone liked it but she kept making it.
Adam L Silverman
@Steeplejack (phone): Thank you for finding that. I’m going to repost it in this comment with portion adjustments as that was for a double batch.
Bessie’s Cornbread Stuffing:
Again, if you’re a vegetarian or a vegan just sweat the diced onions in a saute pan and use vegetable stock rather than chicken or turkey stock and you’ll be good to go!
Enjoy!
Steeplejack (phone)
@Feathers:
Is it this one? Seems to be one of the most popular (and replicated) on the Google. Mandarin Orange Jell-O Salad.
West of the Rockies
Fantastic story, Adam! Thanks for sharing.
Feathers
@Steeplejack (phone): No. It was done in a ring mold. So it was gelatin with something added to make it creamy, but not Midwest whipped jello salad creamy. Grandma’s was definitely of a 60’s vintage.
Thanks for looking for this. I found a one where you stirred the orange jello powder into Cool Whip, which was then mixed with mandarin oranges and cottage cheese. God help me, but that is just the sort of recipe I find irresistible.
John Revolta
One of the interesting things about shopkeepers in the UK is how they don’t really seem to want your money above and beyond everything else. If it’s closing time, or if they don’t feel like bending over backwards particularly, that’s it Mate. Highly UnAmerican.
Adam L Silverman
@John Revolta: Saint Andrews is especially parochial. Significant town and gown issues. And then throw me being an American into the mix…
Adam L Silverman
Time to head back to the kitchen.
NotMax
As we’re talking time honored foodstuffs, does any candy shop still handle Nelson’s Balls?
The Itinerant Confectioner (1824), by Robert Gilchrist
I’ve travell’d up and down,
All the country over,
Seen every market town,
All the way to Dover,
What here I’ve got to sell,
Don’t be shy to ask it,
Or you I soon shall tell
To look into my Basket.
.
Now therein you will find,
What will please your fancy;
Mint drops to break the wind,
Or it will a chance be;
Here’s barley sugar sweet,
Gibby sticks and kisses,
If you will to please to treat,
Little boys or misses.
.
Nelson’s balls I’ll sell ye,
By the weight or dozens,
Candy, white or yellow,
Dog’s turd and pincushions,
Here’s lemon gingerbread,
Cream with ice congealed,
Ye’ll find them far exceed,
Sol’mons Balm of Gilead.
.
Recipe, from a mid-19th century cookbook.
Take three pounds of flour, half a pound of sifted sugar, the same of butter, and a little essence of lemon; mix this up very stiff with milk, put it in a cloth for half an hour, then break it smooth with a biscuit break or rolling pin; mould them into small balls about the size of a walnut with your fingers, bake in a rather quick oven, and put into the screen to dry.
zhena gogolia
Lovely story. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
zhena gogolia
OMG I just watched the trailer for Peter Jackson’s Get Back, on Disney+, and I am in tears. IT LOOKS FABULOUS I CAN’T WAIT TO WATCH IT
scav
Happy Leftover Eve!
(We all have our favorite parts. Turkey+cranberry relish sandwiches and sautéed stuffing.)
mali muso
What a lovely story! And cornbread stuffing/dressing is the only way to go. My mom being from the South, this is almost exactly the recipe I learned growing up. We also add green onions to the savory mix and use some cream of chicken or mushroom soup in addition to the broth/stock. When I think of the holidays, this is the dish that comes to mind.
JPL
@Feathers: It was gelatin and whipped cream or cream cheese that gave it the silky flavor.
A long time friend and I discovered that our moms must have read the same magazines, for their recipes.
raven
Nice. I spatchcocked our turkey and it came out nearly perfect! We ate outside with eight folks and everyone brought at least one thing and it turned out great!
raven
@zhena gogolia: Don’t read the reviews.
NotMax
@scav
Stuffles!
;)
JPL
@zhena gogolia: We watched King Richard on HBO Max and Will Smith just needs to get his Oscar now. I remember all the crap the sports media said about him, and I am ashamed that I believed some of it at the time.
zhena gogolia
@raven: Really? Why
ETA: I just skimmed imdb reviews, and they’re glowing.
raven
@zhena gogolia: Because the one’s I read said it’s wayyyyy too long for the content.
NotMax
@raven
Disney?
The revelation that Pete Best was in actuality a Sith lord came outta left field.
:)
zhena gogolia
@raven: Well, I’m prepared for that. I’m a Beatles baby so I can watch them drink coffee for 6 hours and will be happy.
raven
@zhena gogolia: Eight, I signed up for it too.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
In the case of the four moptops, high tea carries a double meaning.
;)
Anonymous At Work
Something new I tried this year with my Cornbread and sausage stuffing was to use a box grater on the celery, onion, garlic, and carrots. I finely diced a very small onion for the texture but the finely-grated vegetables worked perfectly with the (store-bought) finely-crumbled cornbread. You have to use more broth, though. There isn’t as much left in the veggies.
debbie
@Lyrebird:
Or maybe sour cream.
Faithful Lurker
Cornbread stuffing was the only stuffing in our house while I was growing up. My father grew up on a cotton farm in South Carolina and corn bread was the staple bread. I don’t think they had much wheat bread. The only time my mother (from New Mexico) made cornbread from scratch was for stuffing and I loved it.
debbie
Bessie Jackson sounds like a wonderful human being who did a lot of good. No names ring a bell, unfortunately.
Nina
@Adam L Silverman: heh, my son is a third year at St Andrews. You spell it without a period after the St or an apostrophe after the Andrew because the uni is older than that sort of punctuation.
Red Robes and Raisin Monday. Hoping the pandemic will allow his first real May Dip this year.
Judy Bass
My family is from the Pacific Northwest, but my aunt married a man from Texas, and his family’s cornbread stuffing has become the standard for two generations. But we use the giblets for the gravy, otherwise, it’s pretty much the sam.
Another Scott
@mali muso: Indeed – a very nice story.
Your “/” reminds me that my step-mom from Mississippi always called it “dressing” because it didn’t go inside the bird. She had a very special cast-iron skillet that she only only only used for cornbread.
:-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Feathers
@JPL: Probably whipped cream. I will have to post the recipe when I get a hold of it. It was still very much jello. It had the wiggle.
My mother was born in Georgia, my dad in Boston, I grew up in suburban Virginia. Grew up before I realized that everyone didn’t have two versions of every dish. Plain mashed sweet potatoes AND sweet potato casserole with marshmallows on top. The Southern dishes pretty much were retired after my grandfather passed away. But the new generation has infused some creativity. Roasted Brussel sprouts! Who would have ever thought of such a thing!
Adam – thanks so much for this story. It really is remarkable how lives that pass by ours momentarily can have a big impact.
Ixnay
Many thanks for this story. Fookin’ brill.
NotMax
@Feathers
Back during the 50s and early 60s Mom would roll out some sort of molded Jell-O concoction made using champagne on very special occasions.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@zhena gogolia: One of my co-workers was telling me, when his parents were dating in Liverpool, they used to stop and see the bands at amateur hour. One of the bands was The Beatles(John, Paul, George, Pete and Stu).
Feathers
@NotMax: I’ve done ginger ale ones and seen sprite recipes. Wouldn’t alcohol affect the hardening? I guess not, if there are recipes for it.
I had pears for a pear crisp, but with being tired and a sore arm from my booster this week, I pulled out a dusty can of apple pie filling and made this fruit crisp. Very sweet, but that is what I was in the mood for. Used the one can of pie filling in an 8×8 pan and subbed Penzey’s pie spice for the cinnamon. Would cut the sugar in half and up the oats a bit if I made it again. Feel like I’ll need to brush my teeth forever tonight.
NotMax
@Feathers
IIRC it involved letting it half set in the fridge and then whipping in champagne before allowing it to continue doing its thing.
oatler
I am reminded Lileks’ “Gallery of Regrettable Food”. In glorious Technicolor.
mrmoshpotato
I need a nap.
Chetan Murthy
@oatler: o. my. god. https://www.lileks.com/institute/gallery/index.html
Uncle Omar
A question for all you Thanksgiving Jackals…Did they stop making cranberry Jello? We can’t find it anywhere here in the Flyover Standard Time zone.
MelissaM
I’m wondering if that memorial bank account is still active…
J R in WV
@Adam L Silverman:
While I was not familiar with Hot Coal WV, a little research showed that it is on Winding Gulf Creek of SW Raleigh County, a famous mining district near my home town. I expect it is long ago abandoned as an actual town as the mines were exhausted and closed.
I’m also positive I have passed through what was once Hot Coal driving along Winding Gulf. The last time I was on the Winding Gulf was while I worked for the WV DEP, we toured an Abandoned Mined Lands reclamation project in preparation for developing software to track those construction projects and the federal funding for the work. Amazing how steep the mountain sides of Winding Gulf are, and how difficult it is to get up onto the reclamation projects even in a 4×4 vehicle using a brand new roadway built for the current project.
An amazing coincidence that Ms Silverman got to know and work with a woman from such a small place so near to my childhood home, where I have traveled many times over these many years.
And happy Thanksgiving to everyone who wanders by this Balloon Juice post.
PS: For dinner tonight I did two cornish hens, mashed potatoes, gravy and a big green salad w/ artichoke hearts and tomatoes. Now we don’t have room for dessert!!
James E Powell
@JPL:
See also, LaVar Ball.
Matt Smith
@Feathers: My mother’s orange jello mold uses orange sherbet. Always a hit. If nothing else seems right, I’d try that. Can get her recipe if you want.
Feathers
@Uncle Omar: It is listed on the Kraft Jello website, but somebody’s selling it for $18 a box on Amazon, so I’m guessing it’s one of those supply chain things. Did learn they now have mango jello, though.
lgerard
MMMMMMMMM
Thanksgiving Raccoon
Feathers
@Matt Smith: I asked my sister. She doesn’t have it, but thinks Mom does. Mom is at the cabin and beyond the reach of the internet, but I should have it soon.
Sherbet. That brings back memories. Remember when there were punch bowls with ginger ale concoctions with sherbet floating in them? Need to bring that back.
Reverse tool order
Our tradition is for me to make corn bread several days before T-day and have some of it with Calif. style chile or just beans for dinner. Cornbread with butter & honey or jelly for dessert. Then slice up the cornbread to get dry for dressing.
On the day, crumbled bulk breakfast sausage browned, onion + celery + sage, thyme, etc. Some 24-hour home made poultry stock. Bake or stuff.
I think it’s worth a little more effort to make cornbread from scratch with better ingredients. Bob’s Red Mill medium grind cornmeal, melted butter, home grown eggs, better local buttermilk.
The beans/chile from scratch too, probably from Camillia or Rancho Gordo. Most all of this is readily available here. I scrimp on non-food stuff, which would be apparent by visual inspection.
S. Cerevisiae
That’s a wonderful story and it sounds like great stuffing.
Mom was Ojibway and on the Rez we could always get the real wild rice (manoomin) and she made the most delicious wild rice stuffing, thankfully she taught me how to make it so I can carry on the tradition.
mvr
Thanks Adam,
No turkey here. Just a vegetarian adaptation of Joy of cooking’s version of stuffing with some differences in the spices and a mixture of ww sourdough, white sourdough and olive bread. And oyster stew, arugula & tomato salad and a piece of broiled sockeye salmon. Just two of us.
My dad didn’t like good food so I have no nostalgic recipes or good stories to go with them.
Thanks for the interesting post though. And Happy Thanksgiving to all!
Chetan Murthy
@mvr: I’m still a meat-eater but as I find adequately veggie substitutes, I switch to them. So Just Egg. Vegan butter. Almond milk for baking. And recently, I’ve found the Field Roast breakfast sausages are perfectly cromulent. I wonder if they’d be good enough to use in
stuffingdressing.mvr
@Chetan Murthy: Maybe so. I’m only semi-veggie as the fish in that meal would reveal. (Originally veggie 40 years ago due to resource reasons but that let me expand to sustainably caught fish.) I often find mushrooms play roughly the meat role in recipes like stuffing. Also a good vegetable broth from a not-chicken(tm) boullion cube helps. I sort of use recipes as checklists and then riff off what they have written down. The recipe can keep me from forgetting an essential ingredient now and then. DAMHIKT.
And I really like good mushrooms. Around here at the holidays Whole Foods will carry chanterelles which are my favorites. This year though they were pretty soggy. We had to lay them out on paper towels or they would have gone bad by dinner yesterday when we were going to have them as cream soup. But I may be spoiled having a tiny cabin (far away) in the mountains where they grow in the fall.
Ruviana
@mvr: if it’s not prying can you explain what you mean by your dad not liking good food? I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around this.
Nutmeg again
What a terrific Thanksgiving story! One of the better ones. I was lucky to spend the day with my sister, her son & his wife, their baby, & extended family. Her folks speak (and cook!) Cantonese. So, lots of amazing food, mainly very American. But, there are lots of good cooks in her family. (I need to visit for one of the dim sum brunches.) And the baby was the only kid there– thankfully she’s a little ham(let), and enjoys delighting everyone. I’m very happy to let the Cantonese sail over my head, and just be in a safe room of happy kind vaccinated people who love each other. A great day, and I hope everyone had some kind of warmth and gratitude to celebrate.
My poor old doggo only had one whoopsie–perhaps the second or third since she came to me. Her disease is advancing, but I don’t make a fuss; I just clean it up and carry on. Dogs are a gift.
mvr
@Ruviana: My folks were Dutch immigrants post WWII. My father like bland food. We had fried meat, boiled potatoes and canned vegetables for much of my childhood, though the latter were sometimes replaced by boil in a bag frozen veggies. I can still get myself to gag thinking about the boil in a bag of syrup cooked carrots that had the distinction of being able to be both mushy and stringy at the same time. (Since they lived through the Honger Winter, in Holland we had to finish what we were served (sort of like depression parents). And my mom always served us.
My mom would occasionally sneak some paprika into the food and it was not met with acclaim.
They had a good relationship and he never complained about anything. But you could tell what he liked. And mostly it wasn’t good.
Ramona Rosario
What a touching and lovely story… big lump in my throat now.
Gary K
I don’t personally know any of Bessie Jackson’s family, but her daughters appear to be on Facebook (although not very active there). I sent a private message and hope she replies or maybe shows up here.
Elizabelle
Happy Thanksgiving Weekend, jackals.
Thank you for the cornbread stuffing story and recipe, Adam. It is good to know of fine and generous people like Mrs. Bessie King Jackson.
SFBayAreaGal
@S. Cerevisiae: How wonderful you can carry on the tradition.
HeartlandLiberal
Southern cornbread stuffing baked in a long casserole has always been a staple for our Thanksgiving table. With gravy made from drippings from turkey or chicken, the latter to which we have switched in later years. including a duck this year.
Cornbread stuffing is a tradition in the deep south, and I would be willing to bet that recipe came to Ms. Jackson as part of the Black diaspora seeking better jobs and lives in the upper mid-west that was part of the great migration of Blacks out of the south in 20th century.
My favorite breakfast in the days following Thanksgiving is some cornbread dressing drenched in gravy, sprinkled with crumbled bacon, and topped with two sunny side up eggs cooked with spooned olive oil to finish the whites on top leaving the yolks untouched, then sprinkled with pepper and Spike herb mix. I had this dish this morning, the day after Thanksgiving.
This post was a wonderful tribute to not only family, but Ms. Jackson, and her history. Well done, as always.
HeartlandLiberal
@mvr:
I read an article in either Smithsonian or Discover recently that the cause of Crohn’s disease was figured out by a doctor during the Hunger Winter 1944-1945 in the Netherlands. Patients with Crohn’s disease got better, because of the deprivation and absence of nutrients which triggered Crohn’s.
dimmsdale
Adam, thanks for the recipe and particularly the story around it. I copied it into a Word doc and it’s going to be folded and interleaved into my old Joy of Cooking, along with your chili recipe (which I use all the time).
Thanks also for your commentary here, which always informs my expectations as to what we’re up against. It is invaluable and I would miss it enormously.
Peace to all and a Happy Leftovers Thanksgiving!
Gammyjill
@HeartlandLiberal: I’d be interested in knowing more about that Crohns study. I’m one of four children and the other three have/had Crohns. One sister had a bad case which began when she was 19 and suffered from it til she died from breast cancer at age 60. She led an amazingly good life for someone so afflicted. The other two sibs got milder cases as adults.
I’ve long thought there is a Crohns gene.
mvr
@HeartlandLiberal: Sounds plausible. My mom had a story of someone dying on the street in her presence. I suspect most people who died did it at home, but it made an impression on her. My Dad would ride his bike to visit relatives in the country at least early on, where there was more food. I don’t think this lasted until 1944, since eventually he had to live in a secret apartment to avoid being drafted into the German army.
Ken T.
Thank you so much for the really wonderful story, as well as the recipe. Bessie sounds like such a fine person. And food traditions are so strong. When I was a child in Gainesville, FL, we had a lady come to our house a few times a week to help my mom; I was the second of 5 kids, and we were only separated by about 13-16 months each, so my mom, she had her hands full. Thelma Bell taught me about pumpkin pie: No matter the recipe, always cook 3 strips of bacon and add that fat to the pie and WOW! The taste is so great. Happy happy.