Thanksgiving Memories and Pumpkin Pie, Part II
Woman in the Middle | November 22, 2011One of my all time favorite foods is sweet potatoes, especially candied sweet potatoes. I really really really love them, but I only got them once a year when I was a child, on that day of days, Thanksgiving. One of my least favorite foods are marshmallows. I don’t hate them, as I will eat them, especially when they are associated with s’mores. But it is a rare occasion when I let a marshmallow cross my lips.
Both my mother and my grandmother (who was my dad’s mom) were amazing cooks. Really fantastic in a way I never will be. My mother always hosted the big holiday meals because my grandmother lived in a single wide mobile home and there just wasn’t enough room. But my grandmother, who we called Nanny, always brought something yummy to the holiday dinner. I always looked forward to Thanksgiving and those candied sweet potatoes, southern style, with no yucky marshmallows on top.
Then, one year, when I was about seven or eight years old, the sweet potatos, I realized in horror, had been placed in a casserole dish, covered with marshmallows, and run under a broiler! Yuck! So I said, in a very upset and petulant voice, “Mom, why do these sweet potatoes have marshmallows on them????!!!!????” My mother replied, in a very sweet voice, “Your grandmother made them.” Whoa! In spite of my youth I realized that I had just made a faux pas of the highest order! And I needed to correct it fast! So, changing my attitude on a dime, I said in my sweetest voice, “The sweet potatoes are good, Nanny.” Nothing else was said. I ate the marshmallows with gusto. And neither my mother nor my grandmother ever put marshmallows on the sweet potatoes again.
Thanks giving day is end, Christmas is coming soon!! Merry Christmas!