AlexSandra Lett "Lett's Set a Spell"

Lett’s Set a Spell: Holiday Celebrations Honor Family Traditions and Feature Favorite Foods

All families observe traditions and celebrate holidays with various foods and ongoing customs that may be general to the region but specific to neighborhoods and unique to their homes. When Grandpa and Grandma (W.P. and Verta Lett) were raising nine “young’uns” in the big farmhouse in Buckhorn community in Lee County they celebrated Thanksgiving with chicken and dumplings, collards, and sweet potatoes.

The young’uns would get out in the yard and play ball, hopscotch, or hide-and-seek when it was warm enough. If the weather was too chilly, the family would gather around the potbellied stove and do what they did best—tell stories about the year and tease each other. Sometimes they played card games or checkers with homemade wooden pieces and colored cardboard.

Thanksgiving signified the beginning of a time when all the children started their various projects, such as sewing aprons, knitting doilies, making potholders, baking breads and cakes, and carving pipe handles and whistles, as presents for Christmas. There wasn’t enough time and money to give gifts to everyone but each of the children created something special for Grandma—like an apron or a potholder—and for Grandpa ... perhaps a new pipe, knife handle or scarf.

In the 1950s and 1960s, when my brother Jimmy, sister Carolyn, and I were growing up, Thanksgiving was a very special event. Mama (Ruby Lett) always baked a big turkey and made dressing with chicken, and prepared mashed potatoes, candied yams, corn, green beans, peas, and cranberry salad as well as several desserts. Mama was highly praised for her dressing featuring fried cornbread. Here’s the recipe:

Mama’s Cornbread Dressing

Fried Cornbread
2 cups cornmeal
1 cup water

Sift the cornmeal and put water in it. Stir it up. Put lard in a cast-iron
skillet. Use a spoon to make patties and fry them until crisp. Let cool.

Dressing

6 chicken thighs or dark meat
4 slices of white loaf bread
Biscuits (if on hand) or crackers
1 cup celery, diced
2 small onions, chopped
Pinch of salt and pepper
Broth left over from cooking chicken

Boil chicken in water for about 20 minutes. Remove from water and let cool. Pull meat off bones. Break cornbread into pieces. Toast loaf bread. Crumble in biscuits or crackers. Mix together in a bowl. Add chicken to the bread mixture, then stir in onions and celery. Add broth leftover from cooking chicken until dressing is moist. Pour in a glass casserole dish.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 90 minutes.

Since turkey and dressing is not the same without cranberry sauce, Mama served the sauce plain but also made a cranberry salad we loved. Here’s the recipe:

Mama’s Cranberry Salad

1 can apple sauce
1 can jellied cranberry sauce
1 cup raisins
1 cup nuts

Mix together all ingredients, and chill overnight.

As my brother Jimmy’s two sons grew up on the farm, and as the large pecan tree in the back yard produced more and more nuts, we counted on his youngest, Wayne (who is apparently half monkey) to climb high into the tree and shake the limbs. Wayne’s brother Billy preferred to “set a spell” under the tree and cheer his brother on, encouraging him to pretend he was a circus performer. Wayne’s antics scared the living daylights out of Mama, but we laughed so hard we fell on the grass. Then everyone gathered pecans from the ground and put them in buckets for storing in the back porch. Daddy (Bud Lett) got his nutcracker out of the drawer, and the contest began—not who could pick out the most nuts, but who could eat the most! Fortunately, we young’uns and grandkids could escape from the production line and go home, but Mama and Daddy had their work cut out for them. For weeks, they packaged pecans in plastic bags to give away as Christmas presents and to distribute to folks far from Buckhorn. Jerry Carter, a neighbor, worked at a hospital and picked up bags of pecans each year to sell. Through the years my parents created a customer base who refused to do their holiday baking until the Lett pecans were delivered.

With fresh pecans my sister Carolyn and I baked cookies, and here is the recipe we used:

Pecan Cookies

2 1/2 cups brown sugar
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. soda
1 cup butter
2 beaten eggs
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup chopped pecans

Cream butter and sugar, add eggs and beat well. Add sifted dry ingredients, then nuts. Roll the cookies out on a flat pan. Bake each pan at 350 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes.

As my family plans for Thanksgiving, it will be the first year we will celebrate without Mama and Daddy, who both died recently. It will be sad, but I am grateful that I had two parents who stayed in love with each other and who were committed to making every holiday special. Now I must honor them by creating sacred traditions with family and friends.