Opinion

Karo

Friday, November 23, 2007

Thanksgiving means a lot of things to a lot of people, but to me it means nothing without the Pecan Pie. I had just finished making my version of this American classic, when I realized that this weeks article was not yet in the hopper. Well I googled the subject, and along in the data was the name of the syrup "Karo," Like many of you, I find the food we eat on Thanksgiving, the best fare of any holiday. There is something warm, soothing, and comforting, when you sit at the Thanksgiving table for dinner. Every year, we usually have all of the regular favorites. America's true "national bird", is a must.

Whether it is baked, roasted, fried, or smoked, Thanksgiving without turkey is impossible.

Very few tables would be complete without the surrounding dishes. Mashed potatoes with gravy, sweet potatoes, dressing, green beans, corn, cranberries, and rolls make me hungry just thinking about them.

At our table, most everyone eats a generous helping of this fall festival fare. In fact, we usually eat enough, that it seems impossible that we could find room in our distended bellies for dessert.

There are two ways to prepare one's self for the dessert. The first is to plan ahead. What you do is take considerably smaller portions of the previously mentioned food items on the table. By doing this you appear to be watching you diet to the others at the table. What they don't know is that you are merely plotting your way to the desserts.

You will find that most of the others are so full that they have to take the other avenue to dessert time.

They find a place in a chair, recliner, couch, or even the floor. There they pretend to be visiting or watching a football game. If you watch closely, they will soon be nodding off in the first of their Thanksgiving naps. Only after the nap can they hope to find the room in their stomach for dessert.

You on the other hand have managed the first part of your plan successfully. You are comfortably full from you modest meal, but not so full that you can't enjoy dessert. When your Aunt or some other relative calls out, "who is ready for dessert?" you just smile and raise your hand.

This is where it gets really interesting. There is so much to choose from. Some people prefer the traditional pumpkin pie. Others want cake or whatever other desserts are available. Some want to have a small sample of every dessert. Not for you the purist, however.

Nope, when they ask you what you want, you smile and reply, "I'll have a piece of pecan pie with whipped cream, please!" If they are foolish enough to ask you how big a piece you want, just smile and say "oh just regular size is fine." There will be more to follow, you don't want to act like you are too eager.

Now you have in front of you what you have been waiting for all week, pecan pie at its best. You know the ingredients by heart. Brown sugar, pecans, eggs, salt, butter, vanilla, and the most famous ingredient of all "Karo" syrup. This last part of the mixture is so much a part of the pie, that in some parts of the country down south they refer to pecan pie as "Karo Pie."

The south is where the pie was born, and it remains a tradition there.

Wikipedia states that pecan pie has some food historians who claim the roots of the recipe date back to early New Orleans. The internet encyclopedia does not give to much credence to this claim, as the syrup so commonly used for the pie was not in production until the late 1880's.

Wikipedia also states that there are no cook books that have the traditional recipe in print much before the 1920's, so the history of this famous dessert is fairly recent.

The pecan we use in the pie is one of our local staple crops. Vernon County and southwestern Missouri is home to one of the greatest pecan growing areas in the country. One sad note here, was the weather we had last winter. The late frost in May killed off much of our county's pecan crop this year. The trees themselves are okay, but it will be next fall before local pecans are in supply.

We all have a lot to be thankful for at this time of year. Once again we can gather with family and friends to celebrate the most American of holidays.

Only the Fourth of July is as uniquely a part of our heritage as Thanksgiving.

Here is hoping that each and every one of you had a great Thanksgiving. I also hope you saved enough room in your stomach so that you could enjoy your favorite piece of pie. For me it was my "Karo" pecan pie.

Slightly warm to the touch with a big drop of whipped cream. It just doesn't get any better than that!