Can you believe Thanksgiving’s just two weeks away?

By Staff
Michelle Blaylock, Mom's Corner
Has anyone realized that Thanksgiving is two weeks away? What happened? Did I time warp? Oh, yeah, I know what happened; four children playing soccer and one doubling in softball. It wasn’t a “time warp.” It was a “sports warp.” Nevertheless, I loved watching my kids play sports and I don’t regret the time it took. As I was beginning to have a slight panic attack wondering how on earth I would ever get the house ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas, I began to wonder how much “planning” went into the first Thanksgiving.
Well, being the curious person I am, I just had to look up the history of Thanksgiving. I checked several sources, one of them being “The History Channel.” (www.history.com) The first Thanksgiving in 1621 was not called “Thanksgiving”. A thanksgiving to the pilgrims would have been a religious holiday to thank God for special events such as winning a battle. It would have been a very serious occasion. The singing, dancing and feasting that the Indians and pilgrims participated in would not have been allowed.
Also, the 1621 feast did not start a tradition. It wasn’t until the mid-1800’s that states began adopting Thanksgiving Day as an annual custom. It wasn’t until 1863 that President Lincoln made a national day of thanksgiving and since that time each president has made a yearly proclamation for Thanksgiving Day. In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the president that finally set the date as the fourth Thursday of November; however, congress didn’t approve it until 1941. Nevertheless, the date has stuck.
How about the food? Did the pilgrims have juicy turkey, fluffy mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, and the other “traditional” Thanksgiving yummies? They may have had a turkey, but the rest is a no. Actually, all that is known for sure to have been on the first Thanksgiving table were venison and wild fowl. So what food did the pilgrims have available to eat?
According to the history channel they would have had: seafood: cod, eel, clams, lobster wild fowl: wild turkey, goose, duck, crane, swan, partridge, eagles meat: venison, seal grain: wheat flour, Indian corn vegetables: pumpkin, peas, beans, onions, lettuce, radishes, carrots fruit: plums, grapes nuts: walnuts, chestnuts, acorns herbs and seasonings: Olive oil, liverwort, leeks, dried currants, parsnips. Note the pumpkin would have been stewed not baked in a pie. The pilgrims didn’t have any ovens. Their meat would have been roasted over an open fire on a spit. Someone would have been assigned to turn the spit for hours until the meat was cooked.
Also, the pilgrims’ largest meal of the day would have been their “noon meat.” The women would have spent part of their morning preparing this meal. Supper was a small meal at the end of the day and any leftovers would have been eaten for breakfast the next morning. When you consider they had no refrigeration, that falls under “gross!”
Can you imagine leaving your turkey leftovers out all night covered only by a cloth and eating it the next day? Ewww. How they kept from dying of food poisoning is beyond me.
While I’m on the subject of food, pilgrim table manners were terrible by today’s standards. They did have knives, spoons, fingers and large napkins with which to eat. The napkin was used to pick up hot food as well as wipe their hands on.
Also, the pilgrims did not pass food around the table. The food a person got to eat depended on their social standing. The best food was put by the most important people. The adults sat down to eat, while children and servants waited on them. Ok, maybe everything wasn’t so bad. I like the idea of “being waited on.”
Since I’m busting Thanksgiving myths, how about those clothes? Did the pilgrims really wear only black and white with the buckles on their hats? Again, according to the History Channel, no. They did wear black but only on Sundays and for very formal occasions and the buckles weren’t in fashion until later in the seventeenth century. Women typically wore earthy green, brown, blue, violet and gray. The men generally had white, beige, black, earthy green and brown to wear.
Overall, I like our modern Thanksgiving, especially after all I’ve read about the first Thanksgiving; I’m more thankful than ever!