If you currently live in the South, or if you have lived in the South and are now transplanted elsewhere, before all the turkey and the football, there is cornbread dressing. In our family, the recipe for this staple Thanksgiving dish has been handed down for generations. My mother, whose recipe I make, says she learned to make the dressing from my dad's Great Aunt Stella, who learned to make it from her mother, my great-grandmother Claudia Baldridge Branch. The source of the recipe gets fuzzy past that point, but attributing it to Granny Claudy makes the recipe at least a century old.
Besides being an "heirloom" recipe, what makes this cornbread dressing special? For me, it is the aroma and taste created by the just-right combination of celery, onion, sage, and thyme. Nothing says dinner is almost ready quite as much as the aroma of cornbread dressing baking in an oven from which good ole Tom Turkey has just been removed!
So that's what I will be doing tomorrow.....making that heirloom recipe for some family and friends. And while I am making the cornbread, chopping the celery, and dicing the onion, I will be giving thanks for so many, many things - family that makes me happy, friends who make me smile, food, shelter, and clothing, and all the many other blessings that God has bestowed upon me ~ including all of you, dear readers, who continue to follow my blog.
Now go and enjoy the cornbread dressing!
I know this is late but i love cornbread dressing too. I remember my mother cutting up the celery, onions etc. my grandmother couldn't cook when she married and my grandfather taught her and continued to cook the turkey on Thanksgiving and Christmas through the years.
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