After a few days, the Thanksgiving Turkey has run through the entire repertoire of "interesting leftovers".
Post-Thanksgiving In L.A. – 1967 – Past Daily Holiday Pop Chronicles
One of the few sure things in life: The clatter of hungry plates – the animated conversation, up a few db more than a minute earlier. The deathly silence of full plates and chewing. And finally, the leftovers – seemingly forever.
It’s part of the tradition of the holiday season – the turkey, enough to feed 20 winds up becoming a daunting task for the table of six. The mountain of stuffing piled on your plate – the mashed potatoes in stiff competition from Sweet Potatoes, Peas, Brussels Sprouts, Cranberry sauce, all smeared together in a multi-colored homage to stomach linings and Pepto-Bismol.
The elation of chowing down the festive meal has finally given way to the arduous task of staying awake. But the seductive beckoning from the vast array of gooey and sticky baked goods; from the Frozen Sara Lee Pumpkin cheesecake and the artery-clogging Pecan Pie to the gallon of Neapolitan Ice Cream, melting into a lake because someone left it out all day
And the leftovers; for days and weeks there are leftovers, in every conceivable combination of gag-inducing food swap. Thanksgiving leftovers, looked forward to the for first few days, finally given way to feelings of absolute dread because you have run out of ideas, and the stuffing is getting soggy to the point of library paste. And by now the Turkey, commented on over its moistness at the time, is now so dry it could catch on fire. And that carcass sits in the refrigerator; the gift that just keeps on giving.
And so goes the story of Thanksgiving now and Thanksgiving then – Thanksgiving probably since the very first one -it’s a tradition and a suspicious one – but a tradition we’ve held on to for some 200+ years.
This episode of Mike Roy’s Cooking Thing from KNX Radio in Los Angeles, first broadcast on November 28, 1967, tries to get away from talk over leftovers, instead going on to anticipating Christmas, weeks around the corner. As a staple in the diet of Los Angeles Radio listening, the Mike Roy show, with sidekick Denny Bracken, was on the air all through the 1960’s well and into the 1970s, before Mike Roy died and was replaced by a series of hosts and re-branded The KNX Food News Hour. But this is what cooking and eating was like in 1967 – and the holidays that went along with it.
You’ll also notice our eating habits have changed, considerably.
Enjoy with leftovers.
