One of my favorite things about Thanksgiving is the left-overs. In fact, my meal preparations are with that very thing in mind. I grew up in a family of left-overs, not just food, either. We had 'left-over' or hand-me-down clothes, shoes, used furniture (before that was fashionable), and so on. I was one of five children, so there weren't often left-overs from meals, but when there were, they were worth fighting about. I loved meatloaf as a cold sandwich better than when it was first cooked, probably because the grease had all disappeared back into it. One of my sisters would fight over the last tablespoons of cold baked beans for a sandwich; a cup of cold rutabaga with a dollop of mayonnaise was my idea of heaven. The only thing about left-overs I hated as a kid was Red Flannel Hash. Desperate to put enough supper on the table for all of us, my mother would round up every container of this and that from the dark recesses of the refrigerator, some of it inedible. She fried it, then threw in a can of beets to disguise the whole mess in a surreal, ruby colored heap. I wasn't a picky eater, but I dreaded seeing that on the stove. I shoved it around on my plate and dawdled while it got colder and more horrible by the minute. We were made to finish everything served to us, so I often sat for eternity until I choked it all down. Hell and the hash froze over at about the same pace. A couple of years ago, I went with new, Californian acquaintances to a gourmet restaurant where Red Flannel Hash was on the menu. They were enthralled with the name and asked the waiter what was in it. Implying that it was a unique creation by the chef, he listed the ingredients. Sure enough, it was the Red Flannel Hash of my youth with a big price tag, no more than garbage dressed up in beets, a culinary pig in a pinafore. My dinner partners ordered it, savored every morsel and exclaimed over its delightful "New Englandness."
Our Thanksgiving turkey will go a long way toward meals - croquettes, tetrazzini and soups, but I've got my limits. I'll have to be desperate beyond my current imagination to ever eat Red Flannel Hash again. At some point, I'll throw what remains out, though I abhor wasting food. I cooked trout a while back. I didn't like it, so my cooking creativity wouldn't kick in with an idea for what to do with it. The left-overs languished in the refrigerator. My guilt about throwing out good food was eventually overcome by the smell. A whole trout is not easy to dispose of, so I decided to toss it from our pier onto the rocks for the gulls. I don't randomly throw garbage into the ocean, but I thought the trout might as well feed something if not us and it was, after all, fish. I had hardly turned back toward the house when this eagle appeared, eager for the kitchen carrion. Do you suppose it would have responded so quickly to Red Flannel Hash?
"I'm in the mood for hash."