Seaview Stories Newsletter 14

embmer.gif

Thanksgiving Day Special

As you know, sometimes Seaview receives letters and supplies from helicopters, military and civilian. Seaview Stories was fortunate to obtain a radioed communication between a helicopter catering and delivery service and Seaview's Chief Culinary Specialist.

Turkey Day Memo

 

From:  ‘Cookie’, SSRN Seaview

To: Chopper Chuck’s Catering and Food Delivery

Re: Thanksgiving Dinner

 

Am asking about my  turkey dinner order for Seaview. Just  remember this time that the turkey is fresh. We don’t want another case of tummy troubles at sea.

 

From: Chopper Chuck’s Catering and Food Delivery

To: ‘Cookie’, SSRN Seaview

Re: Thanksgiving Dinner

 

Did you heat  them properly? Not our fault if they were contaminated by all that radiation aboard a nuclear sub.

 

From:  ‘Cookie’, SSRN Seaview

To: Chopper Chuck’s Catering and Food Delivery

Re: Thanksgiving Dinner

 

You guys cooked em’ so all we had to do was reheat!. And they weren’t glowing at all. I’m telling you they were past their prime.

 

From: Chopper Chuck’s Catering and Food Delivery

To: ‘Cookie’, SSRN Seaview

Re: Thanksgiving Dinner

 

Your taste buds must be affected by all that recycled air. Probably still breathing same stuff since Seaview’s launch. If you were so dissatisfied, why aren’t  you cooking Thanksgiving Dinner for your fellow bubbleheads? Perhaps you don’t know how?

 

From:  ‘Cookie’, SSRN Seaview

To: Chopper Chuck’s Catering and Food Delivery

Re: Thanksgiving Dinner

 

 I only got two hands, bud. Have you ever had to cook Thanksgiving Dinner for over 125 souls? Each of em’ arguing over what they want.  Ham or Turkey? Which stuffing?Oyster, bread, apple,  cornbread, etc..  Which pie to have, pumpkin, apple, cherry?  Cranberry relish or cranberry salad? Green bean casserole with french fried onion rings or sauted with almonds? Candied yams or sweet potato fries? If that's not enough, then there’s Mr. Morton…well, that’s a different story.  Just send us our Thanksgiving dinners, just like  Pilgrims had. But fresh, fresh, fresh.

 

From: Chopper Chuck’s Catering and Food Delivery

To: ‘Cookie’, SSRN Seaview

Re: Thanksgiving Dinner

 

Stuffing is when it’s baked in the bird, it’s Dressing when it’s cooked on the stovetop. You sure you want the Pilgrim Special? Doesn’t come with Pumpkin pie.

 

From:  ‘Cookie’, SSRN Seaveiw

To: Chopper Chuck’s Catering and Food Delivery

Re: Thanksgiving Dinner

 

No pumpkin pie? Which kind then, apple, or cherry?

 

From: Chopper Chuck’s Catering and Food Delivery

To: ‘Cookie’, SSRN Seaview

Re: Thanksgiving Dinner

 

No pie at all. The Pilgrims didn’t have flour. No flour, no pie.  And for that matter, no bread; no stuffing; no  potatoes (they thought the spuds were akin to Deadly Nightshade.) They also didn’t have any butter. No cider either unless you want a real belly ache from fermented crabapples. That’s the only apple native to North America till later immigrants brought their own and planted their own orchards or let nature take it's course.

 

From:  ‘Cookie’, SSRN Seaview

To: Chopper Chuck’s Catering and Food Delivery

Re: Thanksgiving Dinner

 

But they did have turkey didn’t they?

 

From: Chopper Chuck’s Catering and  Food Delivery

To: ‘Cookie’, SSRN Seaview

Re: Thanksgiving Dinner

 

Possibly but nobody knows for sure. All we know is Gov. Bradford sent out some men to go ‘a fowling’. For all we know they had pigeons. There was venison, though. And fish, berries, watercress, lobster, dried fruit, clams, more venison, and plums, not to mention boiled pumpkin. 

 

From:  ‘Cookie’, SSRN Seaview

To: Chopper Chuck’s Catering and Food Delivery

Re: Thanksgiving Dinner

 

Eeeyyooo. Perhaps I should reconsider and go with a more modern tradition.

 

From: Chopper Chuck’s Catering and Food Delivery

To: ‘Cookie’, SSRN Seaview

Re: Thanksgiving Dinner

 

Hey, it was New England, what’d you expect? They used what they had. Oh yeah, thanks to the Indians they also had a kind of fried cornmeal, and corn mush, flavored with maple syrup. Decades later it became Indian pudding, a kind of Hasty pudding made with cornmeal and molasses.

 

Actually, Cookie, I'd choose the Pilgrim Special. You can’t get more American  than that.And you being aboard Seaview, well, it's kind of patriotic.

 

Besides was just informed the Pilgrim Special is all we have left, take it or leave it.

 

From:  ‘Cookie’, SSRN Seaview

To: Chopper Chuck’s Catering and Food Delivery

Re: Thanksgiving Dinner

 

Okay. But fresh turkey is a must.

 

From: Chopper Chuck’s Catering and Food Delivery

To: ‘Cookie’, SSRN Seaview

Re: Thanksgiving Dinner

 

We personally guarantee the freshest turkey possible for your table tomorrow..

 

 

From: Capt. Crane, SSRN Seaview

To: Chopper Chuck’s Catering and Food Delivery

Re: Thanksgiving Dinner.

 

Order received. While  I enjoyed the fish and clam dinner with corn mush, I have to tell you that my crew is rather unhappy with the Pilgrim Special.  It’s a ‘comfort food’ thing, wasn’t at all like Mother made. (Actually, in my case it was better, she’s not a good cook, ) but even I have to complain that the dessert of boiled pumpkin was rather bland, and I had to overpower the XO for the additional butter and cinnamon it needed.  I’m sure it was a healthier dessert than pumpkin pie, but even our Chief Medical Officer was disappointed.

 

However, what the devil are we supposed to do with a live tom turkey?

 

Our chief culinary specialist aka Cookie  is a chef, not a butcher. And frankly, we’ve developed  a soft spot for ‘Tom’ ever since he started to follow Riley  around gobbling along with some of his Beach Boy’s songs.

 

I’ve taken the liberty of giving ‘Tom’ an official ‘pardon’ and will be granting him the rank of Sea Turkey Second Class.

 

From: Chopper Chuck’s Catering and Food Delivery

To: Captain Crane, SSRN Seaview

Re: Thanksgiving Dinner

 

We do apologize Captain. Oh, not for the Pilgrim Special. The meal is  historically correct. As for our feathered friend, there must have been  a mix-up in shipping.

 

PS.  I don’t suppose ‘Tom’ knows ‘Fun Fun Fun’? Animal Planet is having a special on unusual pets.

 

From: Capt. Crane, SSRN Seaview

To: Chopper Chuck’s Catering and Food Delivery

Re: Thanksgiving Dinner.

 

Sea Turkey First Class Tom is not a pet, but a valued member of my crew. After all, I felt obligated to promote him, being a Crane. Birds of a feather you know.

Besides, when the Chief rants ‘You Turkey!’ to a miscreant crewman, he’ll know he’s not the only one aboard.

 

Happy Thanksgiving.

Capt. Crane. 

 

 

 

 

Newsletter #14 Caption Contest  A

cap285.jpg

Contact 'Catfish' to enter your caption.

first-thanksgiving.jpg

Centuries later, artists would render their versions of the First Thanksgiving

lettertolincoln.jpg

A letter to President Lincoln

We can actually thank Sarah Joseph Hale, a magazine editor who over 40 years of editorials in Boston Ladies’ Magazine and Godey’s Lady’s Book, letters to governors and presidents, managed to convince President Abraham Lincoln to proclaim a day of Thanksgiving  in 1863.  Every president since made a special proclamation  until Congress voted it as a National Holiday.

The traditional origin of Thanksgiving in the US was the harvest thanksgiving festival in 1621 at Plymouth Plantation in Massachusetts joining the settlers, most of whom were Pilgrims, were the Wampanoag tribe of Native Americans who had been indispensible for their survival since their landing in 1620.

 

Some colonial states celebrated days of Thanksgiving for certain events, but none were based on this first festival. It wasn’t  until Congress declared a public holiday that Thanksgiving has come to represent those early times, as well as family, friends, and food. It’s become as ‘American as apple pie’, which is a little bit of a misnomer foodwise, as the native American apples were crabapples and you can't make a good apple pie with them!  

dinner002.gif

Newsletter 14 Caption Contest B

cap122.jpg

Contact 'Catfish' to enter your caption.

It's become a modern tradition, but the Presidential pardon of a turkey has its roots (also with Lincoln), who, it is said, 'pardoned' his son Tad's pet turkey from the dinner table.  It's also rumored that JFK simply said of a gift of a live turkey for dinner,  'Let's just keep him." (There isn't any proof that President Truman started the modern day Presidential tradition, but he could have influenced the pardon that exists to this day.)

jturfish.gif

wildturkey.jpg

Wild Turkey
 
Not to be confused with an especially fine Bourbon by the same name.
 
The Meleagris gallopavo silvestris  was the species of Turkey (Native to North America) which so helped to sustain the early settlers that Benjamin Franklin proposed it become the national bird or symbol for the new United States. 

Newsletter 13 Caption Contest Winner

newcapcon10.jpg

"I didn't know they were putting tutu's on torpedoes, these days!"
Anna James