Rockwell painting defines iconic family Thanksgiving

November 10, 12:04 AMPittsburgh Family ExaminerLucinda Wiebe

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Norman Rockwell's Freedom from Want, Saturday Evening Post, March 6, 1943

Source: Google Images

Most people reading this article will have this iconic Normal Rockwell image framed in memory; a painting widely known as Thanksgiving Dinner.  But many of you will not know it came from a series for The Saturday Evening Post  published in 1943 called The Four Freedoms. They were inspired by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's State of the Union Address in 1941 and included Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Fear and Freedom of Speech. This picture's true name is Freedom from Want.

If you are part of the Baby Boomer generation, you will probably feel nostalgic about this painting. Younger Americans, however, may not find much to sigh about here unless they get to roll their eyes at the same time. The scene is clearly from your grand- or great-grandparents' generation. You might find it quaint, because it is quaint in the sense of being old fashioned or strange to you since it comes from another era.  But quaint is also defined as being marked by skillful design, beauty or elegance.  Norman Rockwell's paintings are all quaint by that definition.

Many of us Boomers enjoyed some version of this scene around the Thanksgiving dinner table The table itself was extended with four leaves to make room for everyone, which included at least three generations of family and assorted friends.  Mother brought out the good china from the china cabinet.  The silverware had to be polished - everyday utensils were not right for such an occasion.   The linen tablecloth was painstakingly ironed, as were the matching cloth napkins embroidered by grandmother. Gleaming water glasses were set in place along with matching china cups and saucers.

Learning to cook a 24 pound turkey to perfection is a skill handed down from generation to generation.  The giant slippery bird had to be trussed (sew up the cavity where the stuffing is and tie down the wings and legs) and basted (open the hot oven every half hour and suck the juices in the baster to shower the bird for better browning and juiciness.  Making stuffing on the stove top instead of cooking it inside the bird was unheard of.  There is a reason it's called stuffing! 

But the lack of certain modern conveniences that we enjoy today made cooking this massive meal a challenge.  First of all, you didn't buy groceries very far ahead of time because it would never all fit in the small refrigerators of that era.  You had to actually place a metal cooking thermometer in the bird because pop up timers hadn't been invented yet.  And many Boomer families did not yet enjoy the luxury of automatic dishwashers (then known primarily as "the children") nor central air conditioning, which, with all of that heat coming from the kitchen, would have been a real help!

The turkey was the star of the show, but its sidekicks were the mashed potatoes, gravy, and of course the pumpkin pie!  Turkey remains the star of today's Thanksgiving meal, but some families have allowed for the Thanksgiving ham or the Thanksgiving tamales and that is their tradition.  Tastes can be traditions too. If someone goes rogue and brings a pumpkin pie made from a recipe in a magazine, it will not taste like the ones grandma made. So the traditional pie must also be on the table. Because the whole day can be ruined over how much ginger is in the recipe. 

Traditions are very personal.  They set our family apart from other families or tie them together, give us a common identity either as a family unit or a society. Versions of the Rockwellian Thanksgiving still take place today. And Thanksgiving may be one of the few days in the year that everyone in the family sits down to a meal together!

Traditions are also necessary because you will one day be required to write an essay about them in english or social studies class. So pay attention this year.  We don't put all that work into it for our health.  We are helping you to research your next homework assignment. 

Some day, when you "grow up and have your own house and can do whatever you want" you will find yourself wanting to either re-create your traditions or make new ones.  Or maybe you got so busy with the annual magazine sale for the school fund raiser, the doctor's appointments in search of the non-existent vaccine for the H1N1 virus, and the shopping for clothes to fit a kid who just grew three inches last month, that you forgot somewhere along the way to create "special" family traditions.  It's never too late!

Step one is to find out what traditions you may have already accidentally created and figure out how to extinguish them this year.  (It will save your kids a ton of money in therapists bills.)  This concept goes along with the adage that if you aim at nothing you will hit it every time.  If you are very brave, ask your children "what are our family holiday traditions?"  If you get answers like "Working our tails off to clean the house" and "Eating cranberry jello - yuck!" well, that's something to work with, isn't it?

If you get total silence and a questioning tilted-head look, just give up and call a caterer and check the Pittsburgh events examiner here and the Thanksgiving Guide which will be growing daily with new articles from around the examiner.com world.