Thoughts on Thanksgiving, part 2 - Pearl Onions

In my mind, Thanksgiving is defined by the family holiday dinners of my childhood. I grew up in suburban New Jersey about an hour away from New York City, where my parents grew up.  Both of my parents were second generation American Jews whose grandparents immigrated from eastern Europe in the late 1800's.  We celebrated Jewish holidays with local cousins and friends in New Jersey, but the biggest annual family gathering occurred at Thanksgiving. My mother would get up at the butt-crack of dawn to get the turkey in the oven. Grandma Bella, my maternal grandmother, would arrive at about 9:00 am with my great uncle Irvy in tow. Uncle Irvy would watch the entire Macy's Thanksgiving day parade while my mother and grandmother slaved away in the kitchen. At around midday, my paternal grandmother Grandma Dag would arrive with Aunt Barbara and Aunt Marion. Other friends and relatives would filter in during the afternoon. Sometimes my older siblings would bring their high school or college pals and sometimes we'd have a new wave of people just for dessert. It was a bit of a marathon.

The Thanksgiving dinner menu in my house always included certain dishes. Appetizers were always celery sticks smeared with cream cheese and green olives, sticky dates stuffed with half a walnut and rolled in sugar, a dish of canned jumbo black olives and a bowl of nuts in their shells. Of course, there was an enormous turkey and two kinds of cranberry sauce - whole berry and jelly straight out of the can sliced into perfect rounds. There was always bread stuffing made with lots of paprika and cooked inside the bird. There was always canned yams cooked in maple syrup and a few baked potatoes for the people who didn't like yams. We always had a pumpkin pie and an apple pie for dessert. 

The one dish that I associate most closely with Thanksgiving is pearl onions in cheese sauce. My mother would boil the tiny onions until they were soft, then bathe them in a white sauce flavored with Velveeta cheese. Yes.Velveeta. This was standard fare on the Goldstein family holiday table. It just wasn't Thanksgiving dinner without onions in cheese sauce. Funny thing about boiled onions, however, is the carnage they wreak as they pass through your GI track. If the weather was cooperative, it was not unusual to find people wandering out to the porch for a few minutes. I distinctly recall my mother letting a dainty, little utterance go while serving pie when I was about 9 or 10 years old. I was sitting next to her and with the animated conversation going on at the table, I was the only one who heard it. I gave her a big-eye look of amusement and she said "shhhhh" and winked at me. It was our little secret. 

When I got into high school and college, some of my friends became regulars at the Thanksgiving table. Onions in cheese sauce became my friend Jenny's favorite holiday side. During my college years I hosted a late night jazz show on the campus public radio station. My show started at 11 pm and I was scheduled to work on Thanksgiving day. Being the great friend that she is, Jenny agreed to accompany me to the radio station. We'd both eaten large helpings of onions in cheese sauce and on the way to the station we did our best to purge ourselves before spending two hours in a small windowless control room. But the onions are a worthy opponent. About half way through the show, I looked over at Jenny who was reading the newspaper. She was shaking with laughter and tears were rolling down her face. I was about 30 seconds away from doing a live break when she showed me the source of the hilarity - an ad for a home air filtration system that said "TOXIC ODOROUS AND OFFENSIVE GASSES?". As I opened the microphone, laughter poured out of me and I choked.

To make this dish, peel a couple bags of small pearl onions and boil them they are soft. In a small saucepan, melt two tablespoons of butter over medium heat and mix in two tablespoons of flour. Cook them together briefly, stirring constantly, until the flour begins to stick to the bottom of the pan. Add a cup and a half of whole milk and whisk them together until the mixture is smooth. As soon as the sauce comes to the boil, it will thicken. Don't boil it for too long, just a moment. Take the pot off the heat and add small cubes of Velveeta cheese until the sauce reaches your desired taste. It should take a little less than the smallest block of Velveeta you can buy. Of course, you can use another kind of melting cheese like Monterrey jack or mild cheddar, but the Velveeta is intertwined with my Thanksgiving memories. 

My brother long ago forbade the serving of onions in cheese sauce at his holiday table and I have to admit that I can no longer tolerate them either. I did serve roasted shallots this year, but its not the same. Maybe you can carry this tradition forward in our honor. Just make sure the back porch is ready for company.