Here's to Our Country!
The good then the bad then the good again.
Fourth of July! What a day! I bet a lot of you are like me and remember decorating your bike tires and handle bars with patriotic streamers for your local parade, then peddling behind all the floats going way too slowly for your taste. Or you could be in front, playing in a band, or twirling batons, leading cars full of dignitaries and beauty queens waving to the crowds packed along the route to the local park. Once there, a bit of friendly jostling takes place over favorite picnic tables and cushy grass under shady tree, the winners marking their spots by flapping down tablecloths over them. Coolers unpacked, grills lit, children given their behavior marching orders, and neighbors and friends beginning their strolls about to secretly compare each other’s potato and macaroni salads, pies, and barbecue skills. Pop open the offered beers, sodas, and iced teas; settle back in lawn chairs and begin to share the local gossip and news. Maybe there’s an affable baseball game or horseshoe or talent competition. In my part of town there were docile pony rides and a nervous high school student reading out the winning essay on the meaning of Independence Day. Babies and toddlers fall asleep in parents’ arms, bored teenagers congregate on the periphery debating the merits of various up-to-no-good activities. But most of all, what ripples through the day is a great anticipation that grows and grows as twilight seeps in. One second of running around waving sparklers appeases none of the children but at least it’s something. Then, at long last, full onward dark settles in. Then the sky explodes, raining down on the town and the spectators the red, white, and blues of our country.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been to an Independence Day parade, decades longer riding my bike in one. These days family tradition is to hang out from the second story window the long flag that draped over my dad’s coffin and, if they’re around, my sons and their good women coming over for a traditional cookout in the back yard. We’re perfectly situated to watch the fireworks from the army base at the foot of the Verrazano Bridge (also the site of where the first major battle of the Revolutionary War—the Battle of Brooklyn—began when the British landed and were met with stiff resistence by the Continental Army). We can also see the famous display that the mobster John Gotti initiated years ago as a present to his neighborhood.
But for many Americans, especially in this last decade of our history and particularly in the last four years and Supreme Court punches, it is hard to wrestle enthusiasm for the holiday. And we shouldn’t forget that it is one of the deadliest given all the guns and explosives around.
Things could be a lot worse. Let me give you a good example: the July 4, 1923 celebration in Kokomo, Indiana of the “Konklave in Kokomo,” when 200,000 Ku Klux Klan men and the separate order of Women’s Ku Klux Klan and the Ku Klux Kiddies paraded down the main street to hold their festivities in the local park. At the time the city’s population was around 30,000, so it was a very visible big deal.
They all turned out to show the Klan’s enormous strength in the Midwest, especially in Indiana, and to anoint as the Grand Dragon D.C. Stephenson, the region’s most powerful member. Other than that, it was a fine day of playing games and tests of strengths, and, from all reports, a very competitive pie eating contest. Of course, you can’t have 200,000 people come from such long distances and not feed them. The crowd is estimated to have devoured six tons of beef and hamburgers, five thousand cases of soda, 250 pounds of coffee, and a heap of watermelon. And then came the main event, Stephenson’s crowning and his very long speech about the carnage falling upon America, meaning white Protestants and especially white men, from the ungodly pollution of immigrants—at the top of their list in the Midwest, Irish and Italian Catholics, and Jews—and everyone else who opposed the KKK.
When night fell, the crowd enjoyed an elaborate firework display in which fiery symbols exploded above the heads of thousands of Klansmembers, spelling out KKK-inspired messages and displaying specific scenes. One firework set featured Klansmen on horseback, clad in full regalia, surrounded by kneeling Klansmen and a giant fiery cross. After the firework display, the crowd ended the evening by setting fire to an enormous cross that had cost over $2,000 to build.—Gwyneth Harris, Malfalfa Park, Kokomo, Ball State University graduate student thesis.
Two years after this patriotic display the Klan began to crash. Stephenson was unmasked for the debauch demagogue he was and convicted of rape and murder by two prosecutors, jury, and judge who could not be bought by him and the KKK’s money. The scandal caused a great deal of back-peddling from all the legislators, judges, and governors in Stevenson’s fold. Clergymen stopped preaching the KKK word and good people regained their sanity, leading to many KKK chapters to close. The Klan, of course, is still around but it has never again achieved the hold it once held over the American people.
America has always held high ideals and has always struggled to meet them.—Chris Finan, the American historian I sleep with.
So go on and celebrate today with loved ones and your community. Make huge bowls of potato salad and grill some meat (or vegetables or whatever vegetarians grill), and eat a whole lot of ice cream and pie. Be safe and take heart that a glimmering sliver of hope for better days when those founding ideals of ours will prevail for two or more centuries to come.
And now…..
Easy Red, White, and Blue Tart
The philosophy behind this recipe is the fact that July is hot and that is not great for making a pie crust. At the same time, berries are at their most luscious. What to do? Fake it with store-bought phyllo dough—or pie crust—and puddle in lemon curd for the base. Of course that means your white will be more of a pale yellow but no one will care.
For phyllo crust:
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted 8 sheets thawed phyllo dough 9" tart pan
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Melt the butter.
Unfold the phyllo sheets and cover with a damp towel.
Carefully lift one sheet and lay it in the tart pan Brush the sheet with butter, pressing gently along the flutter sides.
Place another piece of phyllo dough on top. The crust makes a pretty presentation if you arrange each layer slightly off center from the layer below. Brush this layer with butter and press the sides. Repeat with the remaining phyllo and butter. After the last layer, make sure one more time that the crust is formed against the sides of the tart pan. Leave the edges ruffled with the different layers’ corners poking about.
Bake the crust at 375 degrees for about 8 to 10 minutes or until the edges are brown. Be sure to watch very carefully that the phyllo doesn’t burn. Let cool before filling.
Filling:
1 jar of lemon curd A mixture of blueberries and raspberries
Spoon a thin layer of the curd across the cooled phyllo crust. Begin to arrange the berries in alternate concentric colors. Thus: blueberries, then raspberries then blueberries, then raspberries until you reach the center. End with a small mound of mixed blueberries and raspberries.
Refrigerate for a few hours to set before serving.
Thanks for the reminder that it's not all democracy, not all the time, not for everyone, and that very democracy is under as grave a threat as it was back in Klan days. I sometimes think vigilance is called for, but that's a word with negative potential, so how about joyful vigilance? Does that make any sense?
A most welcome issue of America Eats!