CRANBERRY-JELLO SALAD

It's November. And that means just one thing...  THANKSGIVING!

You know, that special holiday where families gather together for one single purpose: to EAT the biggest, tastiest, and healthiest meal of the year.

Well, healthy? Yes, maybe. Except for the gravy. And the stuffing. And the pie.

And the cranberry-jello salad that my mom became famous for. Ha!
 
During this century my immediate family has shrunk about as much as it has grown, which means Thanksgiving gatherings are no longer what they once were. My parents, or my brother in-law's parents, used to host Thanksgiving regularly until they weren't able to, or available to. Naturally, my sister and her husband took over the task, daughters being daughters and all, and they do a fantastic job, but they have great grandchildren now so seating at their table is at a premium.

My wife and I generally celebrate Thanksgiving by ourselves. Sometimes we invite in a stray or two, but for the last few years, or since the pandemic, it's been just the two of us. So far I've never hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for my immediate family, and yes I have plenty of guilt over that, but now at this late stage I think it would be asking too much of everyone to show up for anything other than a funeral. Grievances, whether petty or justified, plus other factors, will probably keep us all apart for as long as we live. Sad, but true.

When I think of Thanksgiving it always brings to mind this 1943 painting by Norman Rockwell. It was part of a series of illustrations he painted for The Saturday Evening Post magazine called the "Four Freedoms." The idea for the series was born during President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1941 State of the Union Address, where he outlined four basic human rights that he felt were in alignment with our objectives in World War II---"freedom of speech", "freedom to worship", "freedom from want", and "freedom from fear". The "freedom from want" was depicted as a Thanksgiving dinner by Rockwell, and it has since achieved, well really all four of them have, the status of icon in American visual culture.

Of course Rockwell's painting has been parodied many times since its inception. Here I'm going to feature just the few that I like, because for the most part I don't care for too many of them. After that I'll just stick with a couple of Thanksgiving themed illustrations.

On a side note, I want to mention my good friend Chris Spoonmaker. For years he was the Programming and Events Coordinator at the library system I worked for, and there's been nobody better in that position before or since. Being Alfred Hitchcock fans, we used to chat all the time about classic movies (and other things too of course). Chris is a multi-talented fellow; artist, actor, comedian and writer, and he wrote one of the funniest parodies of Rockwell's Thanksgiving painting that I know of, based entirely on one of his own family's mishaps during that holiday (picture the turkey sliding off the tray). I would love nothing better than to feature it here but the story deserves to be published first professionally---it's that hilariously good. Maybe when Chris reads this it will give him the impetus to start submitting it again to various outlets.

Richard Williams, famed in my realm for having produced numerous Encyclopedia Brown book covers, re-imagined Rockwell's classic painting in the most retching way possible for the December, 2007 cover of Mad Magazine. Seated from left to right are caricatures of party-gal celebrities Lindsay, Paris, Nicole and Brittany. The kid, who I don't recognize but maybe you do, probably wishes he were spending Thanksgiving in a different household.

Charles Boyer accepted a “temporary” job at Disneyland as a portrait sketch artist in the fall of 1960, and then stayed with the company for 39 more years, eventually becoming their full-time master illustrator. He brought talent and enthusiasm to everything he did at Disney, which has never been more apparent than on this, a classic homage to Rockwell's Thanksgiving, and I for one couldn't be more happy with it, or him.

This splash page skewering Rockwell, is from the May, 1958 issue of Mad Magazine, and it was the opening to a classic spoof on one of the nation's most popular magazines, The Saturday Evening Post. Be sure to read the introduction at the top of the page---hilarious! Mad veteran Bob Clarke produced the illustrations, and the text was written by his friend Tom Koch. In 1961 their spoof was reprinted in a Signet paperback titled, The Ides of Mad. You may have read it there first as I did.

Leo Morey produced this cover painting for the September, 1962 issue of Sick Magazine. Morey was the creator of Sick's first mascot, the unnamed, bespectacled little physician that you see above. Sick, along with its rival Cracked, were basically knockoffs of Mad Magazine, though Sick was always the more raunchy of the two, and it ran, mostly unfiltered, from 1960 to 1980, lasting 134 issues. Huckleberry Fink, Sick's second mascot, was modeled after Mad's Alfred E. Neuman. Fink's motto, unlike Neuman's own "What, me worry?", was "Why Try Harder?" I worked with people at the library who lived by that motto.

Leopoldo Raul Morey Pena was born in Peru in 1899 but educated in America. Although he held a degree in engineering he really only wanted to be an illustrator, and so he began freelancing to the pulps in the early 1930's. He kept at it too, producing cover art and illustrations for fiction periodicals until his sudden death from a heart attack in 1965.

This is exactly how I remember Thanksgiving when I was about the same age as that boy. The women did all the cooking while the men just sat around doing nothing. Pretty soon that little girl will be relegated to the kitchen too. (And NO, carving the bird after the fact doesn't count for cranberry salad--and just what fool thought it was a good idea to let grandpa have a knife in the first place?)

Bill Griffith produced this painting for an unknown client. He was a fairly productive magazine illustrator during the mid-20th century, chiefly for outdoor-recreation rag's such as Sports Afield. Beyond that not much is known about him or where he trained, but it should be noted that he is not the same artist who created the syndicated comic strip Zippy.

I  remember there was always some drinking going on at every Thanksgiving. For my part it was just beer, as if that makes it any better. One handsome young fellow, who married into the family, and who my wife had just met for the first time at Thanksgiving, gulped down two giant glasses of wine before the table could even be set. I don't think I've seen my wife's eyebrow arch any higher. Needless to say, this fellow wound up with a serious drinking problem, one that eventually cost him his marriage, job, and then sadly, his life.

Douglass Crockwell (1904-1968) produced this painting for a 1952 Brewer's Foundation Beer advertisement. Crockwell was primarily a magazine cover artist and story illustrator, but he also worked in advertising, and he was exceptionally good at everything he did, including one of his extracurricular gig's, making experimental animation films. During WWII he created recruiting posters for various branches of the United States government.

Sometimes Thanksgiving gatherings can get so crowded that the only way to serve dinner is to do it buffet style. And with this many people attending the kids are invariably sent to a separate room to eat, sometimes located in the basement. I used to resent that, not being able to eat with the adults, but sitting down to eat with other kids wasn't always so bad, especially if you could take your shoes off!

George Hughes (1907-1990) started out as a fashion illustrator, and then did a brief stint in Detroit designing automobiles. But for the majority of of career he produced cover art and story illustrations for The Saturday Evening Post, where he completing a total of 115 covers, all featured between the years 1948 and 1962. Looking at one of his covers was like seeing a story within a story; there was always more going than meets the eye. Hughes was good friends with Rockwell too, and Norman often sought his advice on illustrative matters.

Herbert Morton Stoops painted this period looking "Thanksgiving toast" in 1930, an oil on canvas, for probable use on one of the many magazines he illustrated for. Collier's, Blue Book, Liberty, Cosmopolitan, McCall's, Good Housekeeping and the Ladies Home Journal are just a few of the many A-level clients that kept him busy for nearly three decades. In 1947 Stoops began an ambitious project with Blue Book magazine to paint a memorial cover for each of the 48 States. Unfortunately, his death one year later from illness at the age of 60 ended any chance at completion. 

I THINK we can all agree that Thanksgiving is a great holiday, maybe the best holiday there is because it doesn't force any commercial pressure on us besides turkey consumption. And I know you haven't forgotten about my mom's cranberry-jello salad that I mentioned at the top. So here's her recipe in all its glory:

KATY'S CRANBERRY-JELLO SALAD

1 large box of cherry jello.
1 can or jar of cranberry sauce or relish (not jelly!).
1 medium size can of crushed pineapple (drained).
2/3 cup chopped nuts (strictly optional).

12 ounce dish of sour cream.
2 cups of small marshmallows.

Pour the box of jello into a bowl containing 2 cups of water so that it can dissolve (equal parts boiling and cold. You can also substitute some of the water with the drained juice from the pineapple can).
Mix in the cranberry sauce, the drained pineapple, and the nuts (optional), and then pour mixture into a 9 x 13 inch pan (or 10" x 10").
Place the pan in the refrigerator until the jello sets firmly.

Mix the sour cream and marshmallows in a separate dish. Let stand for 2 hours at room temperature, then beat or whip until smooth. Then spread mixture evenly on top of the already set jello.

Cut into individual squares and eat. Mmm, mmm, good!

[© November, 2023, Jeffersen]