My Japanese family emigrated to New York in 1973 blissfully unaware of Thanksgiving, cranberry sauce, or turkey induced food comas. I have my second grade teacher to thank for introducing me to all that, and seeding a love for cooking on the one day Americans celebrate clueless FOB immigrants.

I was seven years old. Ms. Shapiro was a pretty first year teacher fresh out of grad school (ahem…schoolboycrush). It was 1975, and she let us play the Bay City Rollers on the record player and dance like goons if we were good. She taught us about holidays through food traditions and having us kids cook in class. We formed wontons on Chinese New Year for instance, and she did the frying. Being the only Asian kid in my school (except for my sister), I already knew how to use chopsticks and helped her show the other kids how (ugghahem…teacherspet).

On Thanksgiving, we made cranberry sauce in class. Hers is the classicly simple recipe: berries, apples, sugar, water, orange juice and zest simmered for a couple hours until thickened. I’ve made cranberry sauce every Thanksgiving since. The jellied gloop still shaped like a can has never fouled my parents’ holiday meal out of sheer ignorance of the stuff. I think of Ms. Shapiro every November and often thought I should track her down to say thanks for imbuing an early love of food and cooking. Two years ago, I did exactly that and we’ve since been in touch via email.

She confessed that she spilled those cranberries all over the floor while she was prepping the recipe. We kids were in another classroom at the time so we didn’t see her having to chase them all over the room, under the desks, before we could cook. Mmm… dust bunnies. I also learned she got her recipe from her mom. So this tradition goes back a ways.

I admit that after nearly three decades of making this sauce, the magic wasn’t there for me. I didn’t need B.B. King to tell me the thrill was gone. I tweaked the basic recipe every year by adding spices, wine, or Grand Marnier. I tried using maple syrup or honey instead of white sugar for added flavor. And I realized that was the whole problem: I was adding other flavors to make up for a lack of fresh berry and apple flavors. Why the lack of fresh fruit flavors? Because I was simmering the sauce for two hours and all the volatile aromas and flavors had long since cooked off. Why did I need to cook it for two hours? Because it started off with too much liquid. Why, why, why? Because that’s the way our mamas did it and we don’t screw with tradition, that’s why.

In my next post, I’ll share a technique I came up with last year for a fresh tasting, quick cooking cranberry sauce.