My 1976 Friendsgiving

It's the season for rerun posts, and here is one of my favorites.

Friendsgiving.  It's become, as we say here in the United States, "a thing".

It's interesting to see how a holiday evolves, because I was introduced to the concept when my spouse was in the military, back in the mid 1970's.  That's way before the TV show Friends, which some credit in making this unofficial holiday popular.  But Thanksgiving among friends is a lot older than the show Friends, and I know this from experience.

Although the term did not make it to the Merriam-Webster dictionary until 2020, military members have been doing this for years, without a name.

Think about it - young men and women hundreds or thousands of miles from home.  For some, it's their first Thanksgiving from home.  Many are single.  Travel home, for many, is out of the question.  Young military people do not make a lot of money.

So you turn to the people you are with - your fellow military people.  We decided to host a Thanksgiving at our one bedroom apartment for some of my spouse's buddies because my spouse loves to cook.  

We did the traditional Thanksgiving with one major exception - a non traditional pie, anyone?  Here is my blog post about the experience.

I don't remember asking for food contributions, but nowadays a lot of Friendsgivings involve potlucks.  And, although our Friendsgiving was on Thanksgiving Day, a lot of young people hold this the weekend before Thanksgiving.  That will be this coming weekend.

After all, not everyone has a happy family life. Some would rather skip the drama.  Or, sometimes, people just want to hang out with friends. Or co-workers.

As far as I'm concerned, Friendsgiving is, and will continue to develop, as a wonderful tradition.

That 1976 Friendsgiving  (what I remember of it) is a cherished memory of my youth.

Or maybe my spouse and I were years ahead of our time.

Have you ever hosted or participated in a Friendsgiving?

Friendsgiving 1976

I saw, this afternoon, that "friendsgiving" is trending on Twitter.  This is, after all, the Saturday before the United States celebration of Thanksgiving.

It's interesting to see how a holiday evolves, because I was introduced to the concept when my spouse was in the military, back in the mid 1970's.  That's way before the TV show Friends, which some credit in making this unofficial holiday popular.  But Thanksgiving among friends is a lot older than the show Friends, and I know this from experience.

Although the term did not make it to the Merriam-Webster dictionary until 2020, military members have been doing this for years, without a name.

Think about it - young men and women hundreds or thousands of miles from home.  For some, it's their first Thanksgiving from home.  Many are single.  Travel home, for many, is out of the question.  Young military people do not make a lot of money.

So you turn to the people you are with - your fellow military people.  We decided to host a Thanksgiving at our one bedroom apartment for some of my spouse's buddies because my spouse loves to cook.  

We did the traditional Thanksgiving with one major exception - a non traditional pie, anyone?  Here is my blog post about the experience.

I don't remember asking for food contributions, but nowadays a lot of Friendsgivings involve potlucks.  And, although our Friendsgiving was on Thanksgiving Day, a lot of young people hold this the weekend before Thanksgiving.

As far as I'm concerned, Friendsgiving is, and will continue to develop, as a wonderful tradition.

That 1976 Friendsgiving  (what I remember of it) is a cherished memory of my youth.

Not everyone has a happy family life and would rather skip the drama.  Or, sometimes, people just want to hang out with friends. Or co-workers.

Or maybe my spouse and I were years ahead of our time.

 

Before you go, I wanted to share this Saturday Night skit (kind of PG-13) about Friendsgiving.  

Happy Friendsgiving - or Thanksgiving - to you.

Friendsgiving Pie 1976 Style

A while back, in 2015, I shared the below memory with you of my young adulthood, when my spouse was in the Air Force, and we were spending our first military Thanksgiving, together with other people serving, away from home.  At that time, I couldn't find the recipe for my Memory Pie, which is a soybean pie (no, really, please keep reading) that tastes like a pumpkin pie.

But, thanks to a decluttering project, I found the recipe.  This was my second copy of the cookbook - I had worn the first one to shreds.

So what happened when I found the recipe?

I offered to make it, but my spouse took one look at the recipe, and said "no". When we went to our local supermarket, I couldn't even find dried soybeans.  So I am not going to bake a pie for you.

I will leave you, instead, with a link to the recipe, which is available online.

But I will not leave you with the pie.  Just a memory of what we called "having friends over since we were thousands of miles from home."  In modern times, it may have been called a Friendsgiving.

It was the mid 1970's and we were over a thousand miles from home.  It was my spouse's first Thanksgiving in the military.  He was undergoing technical training in Texas.  And he had friends in his class, all of whom were far away from home, too.

For the most part we were in our late teens or early 20's, but among us was a slightly older man.  Sgt W. was from Iowa and he was a soybean farmer.  As I recall, he had joined the National Guard and was training with my spouse's Air Force class.

Sgt W. had never eaten a soybean.  He had never sampled the crop he grew.

In the mid 1970's, soybeans weren't common the way they are today.  But I had become an on and off vegetarian in college, and I had fallen in love with a couple of books - Diet for a Small Planet and Recipes for a Small Planet.  As I wasn't working at the time, and my spouse was making the tiny salary of an airman, money was tight and we used the methods explained in this book to stay healthy.  We ate whole grain homemade breads, bean and rice casseroles, and even dishes made with the healthy soybean.

In one of these books was a recipe for a mock pumpkin pie made with pureed soybeans, pumpkin pie spice and other ingredients I can't remember (nor could I find the recipe in a long Internet search last night). 

My spouse invited several of his classmate friends, including Sgt W., to Thanksgiving dinner.  And, an idea hatched in my mind.  Why not make something with soybeans for him?

We had a turkey, and other items no longer remembered.  It was one of the happiest Thanksgivings I remember, because we were all away from home but not lonely, and I remember our companionship much more than I remember the food.

Except for one thing.  When I served my "pumpkin pie", Sgt W. dug in, and said he liked it.  So did everyone else.  I even liked it, and I don't like pumpkin pie.

So I admitted to him that his "pumpkin pie" was really soybean pie.  And he didn't seem to mind.

I wonder what he said when he returned home to Iowa when his class was over.  We never saw him again after that.

I don't know where Sgt W. lives today, or if he is even alive.  Sadly, I  know at least one of the young men at that dinner passed several years ago.  So I don't know if W. remembers the young woman he had Thanksgiving with, in an apartment near an Air Force base in Texas in the mid 1970's, and the soybean pie she served him.

If you are out there, Sgt. W, Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow to you and your family.

Tomorrow I will be participating in both the United States Thanksgiving and the twice monthly Thursday Tree Love meme. I'd like to wish all of my readers a Happy Thanksgiving.