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THANKSGIVING 2008
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| American Chestnut Tree on the former Robinson Farm, Hovey Twp., Armstrong County, PA |
An October visit to the
former Robinson Farm--our historic home place in Hovey Township, near Parker, Pennsylvania--found the unusual strand
of American chestnuts behind the Samuel Marshall Robinson house ripe with nuts, and no
one to harvest them! Some member of our family carefully cultivated these particular trees after
the blight of the early 20th century destroyed most of them in this part of the Appalachians. Visiting cousins Judy Tebbs and Sandie Wall from the
Northwest helped me gather enough for three Thanksgiving turkeys.
Here's how I prepare chestnuts for the holiday dressing--or "stuffing" as we generally say in Western Pennsylvania:
Boil them gently for about 10 minutes to soften the outer
shell. Then cut into and peel off the hard outer shell and take away the dark, inner skin to reveal the rich yellow
meat of the chestnut. Then, chop it up and add it to the stuffing for a Thanksgiving bird.
After I shared this with Sandie, Judy and a few other cousins, a flurry of
emails
shot around cyberspace, regarding this recipe and other family preparations for Thanksgiving 2008:
From Barbara McConnell Guilliams, a descendant of
Olive Robinson McConnell: "I don't know if I ever tasted a chestnut but they always sound so good ("roasting
on an open fire"). I know they will be marvelous in your dressing and worth all the work! Boy, that
Tom is a good cook....making apple pies for his workplace! How many guys can do that?"
[See below for that apple pie recipe.]
From Sandie
Steve Wall, a descendant of William Kelker Marshall: "Vanessa [Heller, her granddaughter and Corey's sister] and I prepared
the chestnuts today and added them to the stuffing we made. Corey tasted one
first to make sure that they would be good. He liked them and had wondered about chestnuts because of the Christmas
carol about them. I told them the story about where these chestnuts had come from and how your Mom prepared them when
you were growing up. I told them that they came from a place where some of their great-great-grandparents came from.
They felt the part of the history that I was trying to convey, and It had a special meaning to them. I kinda puddled
up. We haven't had that kind of family history to convey before."
From Sam Robinson, a descendant of Samuel Marshall Robinson: "Our Yankee stuffing is either an oyster or a simple package bread with onions and celery."
From Robin Brown Mosenfelder, a descendant of Olive Robinson McConnell: “I already knew that some people put chestnuts in turkey stuffing
for Thanksgiving. This year I put in walnuts for the first time. It added a
nice "crunch" to the stuffing experience and was the best stuffing yet. I used Pepperidge
farm stuffing as a start (like Dad always did). Then I added an apple cut fine
(like Dad), an onion, mushrooms, celery and some fresh thyme and dill, olive oil. There was almost as much
of the extra stuff as the bread base . . . yummm gone now.” Robin's Dad was Jasper Sumner Brown
(1904-1985).
And Tom Brown, also
a descendant of Olive Robinson McConnell, shared some PDF files of apple pie recipes for his McConnell Kin with the message that "I'm
about to make two [pies] for the office . . . this will take about an hour, then I'll have someone bake them while I'm
off at a jobsite for the morning. We are having a Thanksgiving potluck lunch (stomach-stretcher) today."
The recipes are "Betty Crocker, circa 1965"; and here are Tom's additional directions: I find about 7 Granny Smiths are enough for
a big pie, maybe 8. Note, you need to increase the sugar for green apples. I use a little brown sugar, not all white sugar.
If you want the pie to have more like a semi-solid filling (less runny) add a bit more flour to the filling and a little cream
or 1/2-and-1/2, if you have some. Brush a little of the melted butter on the top of the crust and sprinkle a little cinnamon
and brown sugar thereupon. The eye is the window to the stomach, which is the door to the soul. Or, as Felix Unger once
said: “a lot of lovin’ comes from the oven.” But the best part of
Tom's email was this story he recalls from his childhood: "Story
Time: one day in about 3rd grade I remembered two minutes before the bus was to arrive . . . that I was to bring a family
recipe for the class to assemble a 3rd grade cookbook. Mom scribbled, and I mean at high speed, an apple pie
recipe something like the attached, without any pause or hesitation, from her memory. The teacher must have typed them
all up, I remember the result was mimeographed and we all received one to take home. The book was full of German-Polish-Italian-Hungarian
heavyweight casseroles. No arugula to be seen.” Tom's mother was Mary Louise McConnell Brown (1911-2005), a great-granddaughter of Olive
Robinson McConnell, and made her home in Ingomar, Pennsylvania--a northern suburb of Pittsburgh. ~
Will you share Thanksgiving recipes and family stories with all of us? Email me!
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| Mary Louise McConnell Brown with son Tom, 2003 |
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ELDER BLOSSOM WINE
A recipe in the handwriting of
my father's maternal grandmother,
Alice Viola (Olie) Willison Williams
(1872-1946)
of Madison Township, Armstrong County,
Pennsylvania.
What's an elderberry?
The Northwest Marshall Family Huckleberry Traditions
Judith Ingram Tebbs
Granddaughter of Henry Frank Marshall and Sarah Jane Wilkins
The wild mountain huckleberry
of the Cascade Mountains of Washington State has been a favorite of my family since the early 1900’s. Several
early photographs I have show my grandparents, Frank and Sarah Marshall, and their children taken
on outings to the mountains near their Carson,
Washington
home in the month of August to pick huckleberries. Berry picking was a community event. The pictures often
included other Carson families and several dogs
enjoying themselves as they hunted the woods for the best spots to pick berries.
Some of my earliest memories were of the summers I spent with my parents, Aubert and Bertha Marshall Ingram,
in the same Washington mountains of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. My
father was an employee of the National Forest Service, and along with his family manned a remote guard station during the
summer seasons. His job included monitoring the Indian people, who had been coming for centuries to the mountains each
summer to pick and dry huckleberries, and the white folks who were new on the scene. Another of his responsibilities
was to carry supplies by pack animals to mountaintop locations for the fire spotters who lived there in lookout towers
from June until October. While he was away, Mother and I spent time picking berries so that there could be a fresh huckleberry
pie or muffins on the table for dinner. I doubt a year went by after that employment ended, that my parents did not
return to the mountains to spend a day or two picking huckleberries.
The grandchildren, great grandchildren, and now the great-great grandchildren
of Frank and Sarah Marshall are still enjoying the huckleberry experience. I hope they always will. It remains important
to our family, I think, because it is always a great, refreshing outing, traditional, and it brings back such fond memories
of those who hunted huckleberries before us.
The huckleberry as known to the Marshalls of the
Northwest is a deep purple berry, smaller than a blueberry and with a tart, rich flavor. They are used fresh, can be
dried, frozen or canned. Morning cereal with a handful of huckleberries is a good way to start a day. Huckleberry
pancakes, whether cooked at home on an electric grill or in the mountains over a campfire, would delight anyone. But
perhaps the best way to have them is in the traditional huckleberry pie.
~
Jeff
Olson's Huckleberry Cream Pie
Jeff is the son of Judy's cousin, Sandie
Steve Olson Wall
Ingredients:
9" pie shell, prepared or home made, baked 3 oz. pkg.
cream cheese 1/2
cup powdered sugar 1 tsp. vanilla 1/2 pint whipping cream 2 cups fresh huckleberries (or blueberries) 1 cup sugar 1/2 cup water 3 tbls. cornstarch
Mix cream cheese,
powdered sugar and vanilla together. Spread the cream mixture onto the bottom of baked pie shell. In saucepan, combine the huckleberries, sugar, water, cornstarch and bring to a boil.
Cook until thickened. Pour on the top of cream mixture. Whip the cream and spread on top of cooled pie.
Top with fresh huckleberries. Enjoy! ~
Note from
Jeff
"Here is the Huckleberry Pie recipe that we love. I can't get enough huckleberries.
They are my favorite, by far. My family and I try to go every year to our favorite spot, which is just a few
miles from Mount St. Helens. The views are spectacular. I probably have several gallons of berries in the freezer
right now.
(-:
My wife says I hoard them."
~
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