Thanksgiving Leftovers
So much work, so much travel. Since September, I’ve been to Ireland (fam trip for editors), Dallas (Les Dames d’Escoffier annual meeting), Austin (International Foodservice Editorial Council), Denver (new business), Chicago (client meeting) and the Napa Valley (Culinary Institute of America’s Worlds of Flavor conference) and I’ve just caught up on my expense reports.
So Thanksgiving , even if I cooked it myself, was a welcome respite.
At dinner, my son David’s girlfriend Lynn, who is from Thailand, asked an endearingly funny question: Who invented Thanksgiving? Was it the turkey farmers?
After we all chuckled, I realized what a sensible query it was from a bright young woman who just earned her MBA this year. After all, doesn’t food marketing try to insert itself into America’s food traditions at every chance?
As marketers, aren’t we all looking for windows of opportunity to promote our food products? And lucky us if there’s an annual celebration or observance associated with it so we can sell more food — Champagne for the New Year, avocados for guacamole on Super Bowl Sunday, Easter ham and lamb, corned beef for St. Patrick’s Day (an American — not Irish custom), barbecue for Fourth of July…and so it goes.
People are protective of their food traditions, but if you can find a great menu solution, you might just launch the next Green Bean Casserole — the ubiquitous dish developed by the Campbell Soup Company and sacrosanct on the Thanksgiving table of generations of families. It’s the perfect killer app recipe for a busy holiday where an abundance of side dishes is anticipated.
While I’ve moved on from Green Bean Casserole, my children have not. It’s a part of their holiday taste memories. We all may have become more sophisticated, preferring grilled fennel, radiccio salad and other vegetable dishes. But a bite of Green Bean Casserole transports them over time to happy Thanksgivings past, its constancy reassuring, a treasured part of their food history.
And if some home economist in a test kitchen created the recipe to sell more soup, I don’t mind. More power to people who focus on consumer needs and try to solve them.
So no, Lynn. Turkey farmers didn’t invent Thanksgiving. But lucky for them the Pilgrims did.
