Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner for ten. Old traditions held strong, including the preparation of more than enough food and trimmings to last through the weekend. The Maryland recipe for Skipjack Oyster Dressing was a huge hit, even among the doubters. I don't recall my family's recipe being quite as sweet, but I didn't mind. The recipe called for diced apples to add tartness. I didn't use them; perhaps that was the difference.

One of our guests asked about the term, "skipjack." Skipjacks, the state boat of Maryland, are shallow-draft, sailing vessels developed on the Chesapeake Bay for harvesting oysters. They are the last working boats under sail in the United States, according to the Maryland State Archives. There's also a brief entry about them on Wikipedia, including a list of active boats.


I first saw them in the early '50s. At that time, there were about 100 working the Chesapeake. Only 33 remain.