The Danksgiving Holiday

With the outdoor harvest behind us and the Jack O’ Lanterns added to the compost heap, we caffeinate against the short days, turn our collars up against the cold, and prepare ourselves for this year’s holiday season.  As autumn turns to winter, many of us embrace holiday traditions and symbols that have been handed down for generations.  And at least a few of us focus on keeping it fresh, turning stodgy convention into an herbally enhanced holiday extravaganza.  This month, Blunt Talk invites you to join us in our annual Danksgiving celebration.

The First Danksgiving

For many of us cannabis devotees, Thanksgiving was a bit of a lost holiday.  Since 1987, the third week of November has played host to the annual Cannabis Cup event in Amsterdam, bringing us all across the Atlantic to celebrate our festival.  The American attendees usually made it a point to gather at the most nearly American restaurant they could find (typically a British pub), doing our best to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday in a country that doesn’t farm—let alone serve—turkey, cranberry, or the rest of the usual fixing Some of us decided it was worth returning to the States early to make it home in time for the festivities, but we soon discovered there was simply no way to shake off the residual stone that tends to linger for a few days after the epic indulgence of the Cup.  If we couldn’t get ourselves into the same state as the rest of our guests, we reasoned, we might as well use the Thanksgiving meal to bring them up to ours.  And with that in mind, we planned and celebrated the first Danksgiving.
As you’ve probably put together, the basic concept is to incorporate a little ganja infusion into each course of the meal.  While planning a holiday menu is always a challenge, Danksgiving raises the stakes: you’ve got to plan the menu—and, especially, the extra herbal seasoning—so that everyone makes it to pie without anyone ending up face down in the mashed potatoes.

The two keys to a successful Danksgiving are pacing and potency: start slow, and build the potency over the course of the meal.  To cook with cannabis, we either need to extract it into something like alcohol or infuse it into a fatty substance like butter or oil, or to add an already infused ingredient off a dispensary shelf to a standard menu item.  Whenever we cook with herb, the goal is to heat it enough to activate the THC, but not so much that it breaks the good stuff down.  A lot of folks like to use a double boiler to make sure the temperatures stay in the target range, but as long as you don’t cook your infusion a second time, it should get you the desired effect.

First, a word of warning: eating herb is always stronger than smoking it, effects can take up to two hours to set in, and overindulgence can be temporarily unpleasant.

Planning the Danksgiving Menu

There are plenty of great tutorials online on how to make standard cannabutter, and there are even foolproof kitchen gadgets for it like the Magical Butter machine.  This works out great for Danksgiving, because so many of our traditional holiday dishes are rich comfort foods.  We usually start off with crescent rolls and corn bread, served with our homemade cannabutter.  Since the butter a go-to for the entire meal, we always make a double batch—but like the dishes themselves, it’s easy to underestimate how many times you’ll go back for seconds, so we make our Danksgiving butter one-quarter the usual potency.

Around this time, the first glasses of wine get poured, and if we’re already preparing a mulled holiday wine, we like to add some herbs along with the spices.  Just pour your choice of red table wine it into a saucepan on low heat, and add a cheesecloth sachet with one sliced orange, four cloves, a pinch of nutmeg, a pinch Of cardamom, and cinnamon to taste.  For your infusion, add 7-14 grams of your favorite strain finely ground.  Tie off your sachet, drop it in, and let the wine simmer covered over low heat for about 2 hours.  Then just remove your sachet and allow the wine to cool and you’re ready to serve.

For hors d’oeuvres, our family does baked brie wheels.  Short of making our own cheese from infuse. Fortunately, there are a few companies making hash infused honey, and it fits the bill perfectly: spread a nice layer of infused honey on the top of each brie wheel after they’re removed from the oven and serve them with warm bread and fresh berries.

No Thanksgiving is complete without heaps of sides.  Since every family has its traditional lineup, here are some general guidelines: for mashed potatoes, glazed yams, green bean casserole, and macaroni and cheese, use your infused cream and butter, but remember not to re-cook with infused ingredients or you’ll break down the good stuff.  This usually means cooking the dish, then blending in your butter or cream.  When it comes to cranberry sauce and other condiments, adding a dropper or two of tincture from your local dispensary is the best way to add some buzz without ruining the dish by spontaneously adding butter.

When it’s time to talk turkey, many of us fantasize about deep frying a bird in a few gallons of pot infused oil, but the high temperatures involved would ruin all the fun.  If you like to rub butter under your bird’s skin to get it to crisp when you roast it, there’s no harm in working in your homemade cannabutter here, but the best way to turn on your turkey is to make some groovy gravy.  Unfortunately, the chemistry doesn’t work out to allow you to just extract your bud into your pan drippings like you would with butter, so substitute infused coconut oil for half the drippings in your favorite gravy recipe.

And with that, you are initiated into the traditions of Danksgiving.  Let us know if you give it a try this year—and look forward to your most restful post-feast coma, and most memorable (or hardest to remember…) Thanksgiving yet.