A Turkey by Any Other Name...

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I don’t actually know what Turkey Tetrazzini is, honestly. I know the name from being a child of the 70’s, where it always struck me as something vaguely Italian-fancy, but also suspiciously like something originating from the label on a can of condensed soup, like so many other creamy casserole-type dishes of the era. Something dreamed up in a midwestern test kitchen at a giant food factory, to appeal to the kind of goyishe moms who were bestimmt not my mom. Meaning it was more like something made by the calm, cocktail-drinking mothers of my non-jewish friends; the blond, some mysterious (to me) variation-on-Christian types, happy to indulge their daughters in frivolous things like Tiger Beat magazines, Tab and Dr Scholl’s sandals, the kind of moms who listened to eight-track tapes of the Carpenters in their cars and didn’t reflexively anticipate imminent poverty with every expense. Not my mom. Her dark hair and eyes reflected the fear that quietly but insidiously emanated off of her after a childhood spent on the run across eastern Europe and into hiding in Uzbekistan. I wouldn’t have even pondered asking for something as frivolous, as lowbrow as Tiger Beat, although I was indulged with a subscription to Dynamite magazine, which I devoured every month. I was a devourer of many things, especially books and magazines for kids.

She probably didn’t make a Tetrazzini, at least not that I remember. I’m going to ask my sister, but I’m sure my mom never foisted that combination of turkey, mushrooms, creamy sauce, spaghetti, olives, parmesan, and (in some online recipes) almonds on us. She was not big on the creamy casseroles, except for a mac and cheese with tuna in it that she started making during the recessions and meat boycotts of the early 70’s. Despite her years of near-starvation during the war, she found herself with a chubby child, and she imprinted all her food fears and mishegoss onto me, urging me to clean my plate while also reminding me, at ten, that bathing suit season was just around the corner. If she had made Tetrazzini, it would’ve been with nonfat cottage cheese and skim milk for sure.