Almost no American writer of his time mentions food as frequently as he – and that, along with the ”autumnal tints” of the New England he so loved, the falling leaves of hectic red, yellow and brown that, in his words, ”teach us how to die,” and the smells of the deep, dark, lovely woods of Massachusetts at this season have always conspired in my mind, for some reason, to associate this great Concord writer with the feast of Thanksgiving. (New York Times, 1982)