It's that time of year again. Time for Mama Stamberg's Cranberry Relish. Every year since 1972, around Thankgiving, I've shared my mother-in-law's famous cranberry relish recipe on the radio. It's appallingly pink, like Pepto Bismol — but it tastes terrific.
This year, I bring my relish recipe to Thanksgivukkah. Next week, Thanksgiving and the start of Hanukkah fall on the same day. It's a rare convergence.
How unusual is it? Well, the last time Thanksgiving and Hanukkah shared a start date was 125 years ago. And it won't happen again for another 76,000 or so years. The overlap involves the calendar that says this is 2013, and the Jewish] calendar based on the solar and lunar cycle.
I asked Keith Devlin — Weekend Edition's math guy — to explain.
"Thanksgiving is the easy one," Devlin says. "You know, it's the fourth Thursday every November. So anybody can do that. That was a nice, simple, American-style celebration that doesn't change from year to year."
"But then you've got this thing called the Jewish calendar, which is, as is appropriate with the history of the Jews .. [it's] got a lot of complications."
Complications like changing every year, a month here, a month there.
"The simplest way to look at it is that the Jewish calendar is slowly moving forward," Devlin says. "Roughly it moves forward about four days every thousand years. So this is pretty slow. And that's why it would take maybe 70 or 80 thousand years before this thing cycles all the way around again and hits Thanksgiving again."
So let's eat! Turkey, of course. Can't have Thanksgiving without it. But instead of the usual sweet potatoes, how about latkes — Jewish potato pancakes — made with schmaltz?
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