Okay, the title for today is in no way original, but my day has not been the typical prep for Thanksgiving. Prepping the turkey, baking pies and breads, cleaning the house, all that stuff. I’m going to my grandparents house for the holiday and we are bringing the squash, which I will make up about 1 hour before we leave for our 12:00 lunch engagement.
What I did do tonight was work on a little treat for my dad. I’m hoping everyone likes them, but dad has talked quite a bit this fall about my Great Grandmother’s Popcorn balls. He has told the stories surrounding them, and talked at length about how yummy they are. I decided to give them a shot, I have Great Grammy’s recipe. I boiled the molasses and sugar together until they reached the soft crack stage…
I removed from heat and added butter, salt and baking soda, stirred well, then poured that over the canning bucket filled with popcorn and stirred it all around until the corn was well coated.
Then with buttered rubber gloved hands, I formed 16 balls…not all shown here.
I want to eat one so badly, but I don’t know for sure how many will be there tomorrow, and I want to get to have one then too, so I’m waiting…not patiently, but I’m waiting.
While I was out doing errands I was listening to a very interesting story on NHPR about Thanksgiving and how it started. I have always heard about Plymouth Rock, Pilgrims, first Thanksgiving was after their first year…you know the drill. Well, there was much more to it than all that. Sure the Pilgrims were thankful after they survived their first year and they were able to find ways to feed themselves, but that was not when Thanksgiving was really recognized.
There was a woman, who was quite remarkable from the accounts I’ve found so far, named Sarah Josepha Hale. She was in her 30’s when she lost her husband and she had to support her family. She did some remarkable things in her middle years, including being a very strong voice for women in general, and made a living driving home the point that what a woman does in the home is an incredibly important and highly valued contribution that should not be trivialized. She was the first woman editor for the first woman’s magazine, a book author, and the driving force behind Thanksgiving being a national holiday celebrated on the 4th Thursday of November.
Sarah spent 20 years of her life lobbying the political world to make Thanksgiving a National Holiday, and finally President Lincoln stepped up to the plate. It was in 1863, the country was divided by Civil War and Sarah Hale had given Lincoln the perfect PR platform. All Americans, everywhere would take one day, the 4th Thursday of November, to spend with family and share a meal. He shared Sarah’s hope, that doing so would create a since of Unity in a very fractured Nation.
“If every state would join in Union Thanksgiving on the 24th of this month, would it not be a renewed pledge of love and loyalty to the Constitution of the United States?” – Sarah Josepha Hale from an editorial in 1859, 4 years before the Holiday was instituted.
I hope you enjoy your 4th Thursday of November with Family and Friends and spend time thinking about that for which you are thankful. I hope that being part of this National event might also serve to heal a Country that is, again, finding itself to be very much fractured…I’d like to see a renewed pledge of love and loyalty to the Consitution of the United States…and to enjoy a little reminder of my Great Grandmother and the amazing woman she was, while I nibble on a Popcorn Ball.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Iva’s Popcorn Ball Recipe:
3 Quarts (12 cups) Popped Popcorn
Bring 1 cup molasses and 1/2 cup sugar to boil at 275 degrees (Soft Crack Stage)
Remove from heat and add 1 TBS butter, 1/2tsp salt and 1/4 tsp baking soda, mix well.
Pour over popped corn, mix, butter hands, form into balls.
Enjoy!
I made a triple batch to yield 16 softball sized Popcorn Balls.
The squash was very good too!