To The Cranberry Sauce on our Thanksgiving Table

Everything was from scratch and handmade: Dad’s bread dressing made the night before; he cut up 4 whole loaves of HomePride Split Crust White Bread and was literally up to his elbows mixing it. Mom made the gravy from the giblet stock and turkey drippings. The green beans were fresh from the downtown market, cleaned and snapped, steamed and buttered. We were snobs about all of this. We don’t open boxes and jars to cook dinner. We cook with real food.

Except for the cranberry sauce, not sauce but jelly, gelatin, more like a tough crimson jello mold. Straight out of the can. Dad opens the it and run a knife around the inner edge to loosen it away, plops it onto a plate. It shakes a bit as he carries it to the table. It’s unnaturally shiny. The ribbing of the can clearly visible. When passed my way, I never try it. I can’t figure out how to actually eat it.

I’m in my 20’s before I recognize this as a contradiction in ethos: the labor of cooking from scratch vs. the ease of canned cranberry jelly. I begin experimenting with cranberry relish recipes for our Thanksgiving dinners. Whole cranberries boiled until they pop. Mashed with orange and sugar one year. Made into chutney another. Served with a spoon instead of sliced with a knife. An actual sauce.

Dad is not a fan. Cranberry jelly from a can is a childhood favorite. My grandmother, Nana, who went by Marion, though her name was Mary Elizabeth, served it. Brooklyn, 1940’s. The war effort becomes a habit, though never an easy one. My dad, in second grade, takes a subway to school. When he’s a bit older he works as a copy boy at the New York Times with his uncle. He’s the oldest of 5. Then 6. Then 5.

Today, she would have survived the heart defect. Technology had not made it’s way into the infants’ hearts yet when she was born. Doctors called them “blue babies.” Parents took them home knowing. Waiting.

Mom (center) with my dad's parents, Nana & Poppie at our home in Dallas

In those days, my dad could not have imagined that his life at 53 would be lived in Dallas. That he would be a professor. A grandfather. A ranch house and a Subaru station wagon. We are sitting at the table, twelve or so counting guests and the newly married. He carries in the plate of cranberry jelly, shimmering against the candles. He sets it next to his plate, on the table between him and me. It’s whole and sweet. We will never go another year without it.