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Thanksgiving

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crockett

Cannon
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I'm thinking of a more period type Thanksgiving. Roast Turkey, pumpkin pie, but maybe succotash and such. I was told as a child that the NDN's showed the pilgrims how to make popcorn but now I think it was likely parched corn.
I suppose oysters might have been available.
 
Inasmuch as the REAL First Thanksgiving was near El Paso del Norte in the late 1500s, I suspect that what was on the menu was a variety of NA foods of the Southwest & traditional Spanish dishes.
(I'll try to find the exact date & title of the book, that was written by a Spanish Dominican priest, that mentions the celebration & will post it here, when I have time to go to The Institute of Texas Cultures & find it in the archives.)

SORRY but the Pilgrims were "Johnny Come Lately" to the idea of celebrating Thanksgiving.

yours, satx
 
Which period and what references?.....

The Thanksgiving that most of us know is the commercialized post WW2 version...Complete with a Butterball.
 
No kidding...all we know for sure about those Pilgrims is they stopped where they did cause they ran out of beer. For that first big feed, not called Thanksgiving, all the only original account by Edward Winslow says is "our governor sent four men on fowling" and later "They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help besides, served the company almost a week". What fowl there was is never specified. More likey ducks or shore birds than turkey or geese. When the uninvited guests " Massasoit, with some ninety men" showed up, they were good guests enough to co out and bring in four deer...so dinner was mostly venison, fowl, possibly shell fish and a lot of vegetables from pumpkin (but only as porridge), squash , watercress and several types of nuts and berries. Except for deer and fowl, nothing is mentioned. Oh well...I prefer Mexican tamales for that time of year! :haha:

William Bradford speaks of turkey but is actually referring to later years of the Plymouth. Did turkey make it the first time? Maybe yes, maybe no but cornbread probably from that first harvest so guess what kind of stuffing would have been made? :rotf:
 
You better be one stealthy Pilgrim then...pelican are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act! :wink: :haha:
 
SORRY but the Pilgrims were "Johnny Come Lately" to the idea of celebrating Thanksgiving.

Actually, what the "Pilgrims" celebrated was a late version of what they would have known in England as the annual harvest feast, which is a tradition handed down from the very early Middle Ages, from the feast of Michaelmas, which was/is held on 29 September...., and often featured/features a roast goose. :wink:

Michaelmas
was the feast at the end of the harvesting season, one of four quarterly "feast days" and celebrated the Archangels as opposed to human saints. It also coincided with the Harvest Moon, the ancient indicator of the end of the harvest and the feast in pagan times. The harvest moon's actual date varied from year to year, so during the Middle Ages the day of veneration of the Archangels was September 30th, with the feast being then held on the eve, or September 29th.

When Protestantism replaced Catholicism, Michaelmas lost it's roll as a day of obligation, and over the next century returned to a traditional feast often called Harvest Home. The Puritans (Pilgrims) would have scorned such an extravagant meal in which their non-Puritan English neighbors indulged, but they did recognize special days of "thanks" which were "given" to God when they as a community recognized a large blessing. In 1621, it was the huge harvest compared to the past year's troubles...., and would not have been an annual feast.

What folks in contact with the Catholic Spaniards celebrated was probably more closely related to Michaelmas, which originated in Rome and spread through Northern Europe, rather than a special, one time only, "thanks-giving", as celebrated by the Pilgrims.


LD
 
October 3rd,

On this day in 1863, expressing gratitude for a pivotal Union Army victory at Gettysburg, President Abraham Lincoln announces that the nation will celebrate an official Thanksgiving holiday on November 26, 1863.

The speech, which was actually written by Secretary of State William Seward, declared that the fourth Thursday of every November thereafter would be considered an official U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving. This announcement harkened back to when George Washington was in his first term as the first president in 1789 and the young American nation had only a few years earlier emerged from the American Revolution. At that time, George Washington called for an official celebratory “day of public thanksgiving and prayer.” While Congress overwhelmingly agreed to Washington’s suggestion, the holiday did not yet become an annual event.

Thomas Jefferson, the third president, felt that public demonstrations of piety to a higher power, like that celebrated at Thanksgiving, were inappropriate in a nation based in part on the separation of church and state. Subsequent presidents agreed with him. In fact, no official Thanksgiving proclamation was issued by any president between 1815 and the day Lincoln took the opportunity to thank the Union Army and God for a shift in the country’s fortunes on this day in 1863.

The fourth Thursday of November remained the annual day of Thanksgiving from 1863 until 1939. Then, at the tail-end of the Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, hoping to boost the economy by providing shoppers and merchants a few extra days to conduct business between the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, moved Thanksgiving to November’s third Thursday. In 1941, however, Roosevelt bowed to Congress’ insistence that the fourth Thursday of November be re-set permanently, without alteration, as the official Thanksgiving holiday.
 
satx78247 said:
Inasmuch as the REAL First Thanksgiving was near El Paso del Norte in the late 1500s,...
I would guess that people gave "thanks" at different times, all over the world. It might be impossible to know who gave thanks "first".

The one we celebrate in the USA came to be in 1863 and was based on the Pilgrims story.
 
The real Thanksgiving dinner is quite simple.

Turkey
Dressing
Cranberry sauce
Sweet potatoes
Mashed potatoes
Green beans
Gravy
Rolls
Pumpkin pie

That's the tradition. Everything else is optional.
 
After the WTBS American history became a popular subject, but, the writers were from the north. The history of Jamestown got squeezes out by the story of the pilgrims. I was a teenager before I leaned Jamestown was older then Plymouth, and learned that in the library in town not in school. I was very surprised.
Harvest festivals are at least as old as the harvest, and I would bet that Ug and his family had one big blow out on fresh meat every fall during the ice age,no doubt within ice age Venus at the head of the table.
To me it’s that 1940s Saturday night post meal that’s thanksgiving dinner. None to hc.
 
I was thinking about the guys that landed at Plymouth Rock, unless that actually never happened.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
crockett said:
I was thinking about the guys that landed at Plymouth Rock, unless that actually never happened.
They landed near it, not on it. A crew wouldn't risk a ship's boat bumping against a boulder in moving water. :wink: They were a tough bunch and had lost a portion of their number during the severe winter but had managed a decent crop that year, with help. That first meal is more questions than answers. Winslow only says that four men went 'fowling' and 90 Native men (so how many women and kids we just don't know) showed up and brought in four deer. Venison and birds are all we know of for sure...the rest can be surmised from what was later recorded about what they normally grew or could find.
 
Native Arizonan said:
The real Thanksgiving dinner is quite simple.

Turkey
Dressing
Cranberry sauce
Sweet potatoes
Mashed potatoes
Green beans
Gravy
Rolls
Pumpkin pie

That's the tradition. Everything else is optional.
Essential:
Turkey
Dressing
Gravy
Pumpkin pie

The rest are edible spackle that take up important space that could be filled with those listed above... :grin:
 
Turn some of those ideas into pumpkin empanadas and turkey tamales and it's like South Texas in November! :wink: Make that stuffing with chorizo, pecans, apple and braised corn mixed with cornbread and you're onto something! And then, there's morning menudo! :shocked2: :rotf:
 
Wes/Tex said:
And then, there's morning menudo! :shocked2: :rotf:
Menudo - that's something I could get behind (but not anyone I know...).
Got a good recipe you'd be willing to share?
 
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