A Special Thanksgiving Memory

By Francis Moran

“What is tetrazzini?” I remember asking chef/instructor Jim Birmingham at the Feast for Floodies event in May of last year. I was with a crew of other New England Culinary Institute students volunteering at the Crossett Brook Middle School to prepare and serve a special community dinner for those affected by the flood caused by Hurricane Irene.

Chef Jim, himself a village floodie, teamed-up with Andrea McManus, a Waterbury Center resident and NECI faculty member who had helped with previous flood dinners, to create a menu and recruit students to cook the big dinner.

The event was organized by Carrie Dessureau and her dedicated committee, who within a few short weeks managed to solicit a tremendous amount of donated food from area businesses and many generous people from the area, to help keep the spirit of community alive with a social gathering and meal.

We had enough food to feed an army; including cakes, cookies and pies of all descriptions for dessert, lettuce greens for salad, plus pasta, frozen mixed vegetables, cheese, ham, and I don’t know how many cooked turkeys for the main course.

It seemed a little chaotic in the kitchen at first, but Chef Jim quickly got us organized and gave us each a task. I was assigned to get a big pot of water on the stove and cook spaghetti.

“After that, start pulling all this meat off the bones,” he commanded, pointing to the large object still cooling in a roasting pan beneath a blanket of aluminum foil.

“What are we making?” I asked. “A kind of tetrazzini,” he replied.  I had never heard of such a thing. “What is that?” I wondered out loud, as I ripped a turkey leg from its socket and shredded the meat into small pieces. “It’s a fancy Italian word for casserole,” Chef Jim answered. 

That sounded plausible, I thought to myself; but I couldn’t see his facial expression, and quietly went back to work. I would have to wait until I got home to look it up.

In fact, tetrazzini is named for famed Italian opera singer Luisa Tetrazzini. But whatever it's origins, it makes for a delicious day-after Thanksgiving dish to serve using leftover turkey and vegetables.

And for, after that inspiring meal for flood victims, tetrazzini will always be connected to the spirit of "thanksgiving."