When a chill’s in the air and the leaves have turned color (or have already fallen on our lawns), our minds tend to turn to Thanksgiving Day planning.
A Thanksgiving past, circa 1977.
Photo Credit: Mark A. Miller
Bette contributes her famous berry sauce for the annual feast.
Photo Credit: Mark A. Miller
Let us give thanks to the turkeys who have gone before us.
Photo Credit: Mary Jaros
Whether your table is set for two or for 20, Thanksgiving is a day of celebration!
Photo Credit: Mark Landicho
As a baby boomer growing up in Ohio, I learned in school that Thanksgiving is a commemoration of giving thanks to God by the Pilgrims of Plymouth, MA, for the seasonal harvest – the food that would enable them to survive through winter. We kids were also taught that the Pilgrims wanted to share their thanks with the Native Americans who had helped them that year. We really didn’t learn much about the first Thanksgiving in terms of what they actually did, what was available to eat or the fact that it wasn’t an annual event in Plymouth after 1621.
As kids, what we did on Thanksgiving was eat! After finding our places at “the kids’ table” and fidgeting through the blessing, our only focus was stuffing our faces with as much food as possible. The adults would later sip coffee with their desserts and talk about whatever it was they talked about, then the men went off to watch football on TV while the women were left to clean up everything. Meanwhile, we kids tried to play games through the pain of strained bellies and the sleepy haze of L-tryptophan.
We always assumed that the Pilgrims and Native Americans ate the same things that we did – namely big-breasted turkey with stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, beans with creamed mushroom sauce and canned onion rings on top, “yams” (sweet potatoes swimming in butter and brown sugar), carrots (also swimming in butter and brown sugar), maybe a salad or some cranberry dish that we kids all passed over like it was poison, Jell-O (no Midwest meal would be complete without one), and, of course, pumpkin pie and ice cream.
Obviously Aunt Elsie wasn’t around to share with the Pilgrims her famous green bean casserole. So what do we really know about this holiday?
The details are sketchy about the first Thanksgiving, as there are only two known written records of it. The first is Pilgrim Edward Winslow’s account, which he wrote in a letter dated Dec. 12, 1621. The second is mentioned in Governor William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation: 1620-1647, written approximately 20 years after the first celebration of thanks took place. It wasn’t until the governor’s account was rediscovered in 1854 that a renewed interest was sparked in establishing the event as a national holiday. In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln officially proclaimed it as such. Then President Franklin D. Roosevelt officially designated that the fourth Thursday in November is when we would always celebrate it. And the rest, as they say, is history.
As a national holiday, Thanksgiving is uniquely American; although many other countries around the world also celebrate the theme or message of thanksgiving. (Canada, for example, has a much quieter holiday on the second Monday of October.)
Experts suspect that the Pilgrims and Native Americans celebrated the first Thanksgiving in 1621 eating what was readily available in the Plymouth, MA, area. The following list is taken from the Plimoth Plantation Museum’s recipe page, as reported on the NativeAmericans.com Website (see “Extras” to the right for more information):
- Fish: cod, bass, herring, shad, bluefish and eel
- Seafood: clams, lobsters, mussels and small quantities of oysters
- Birds: wild turkey, goose, duck, crane, swan, partridge and other miscellaneous waterfowl
- Other meat: venison (deer), possibly salt pork or chicken
- Grain: wheat flour, Indian corn and cornmeal; barley (mainly for making beer)
- Fruits: raspberries, strawberries, grapes, plums, cherries, blueberries, gooseberries (These reportedly would’ve been dried, as none would’ve been in season.)
- Vegetables: peas, squashes (including pumpkins), beans
- Nuts: walnuts, chestnuts, acorns, hickory nuts, ground nuts
- Herbs and seasonings: onions, leeks, strawberry leaves, currants, sorrel, yarrow, carvel, brooklime, liverwort, watercress and flax
- Other: maple syrup, honey, butter, Holland cheese and eggs
When’s the last time you ate salted fish, venison or dried fruits for Thanksgiving?!
Whatever your traditions are for commemorating our official day of giving thanks, the point is to take stock of all that we have, celebrate being together with family and friends, and share with our fellow citizens. I hope yours is a joyful holiday…and thank you!
