Happy Turkey Day, Pilgrims!!

Right off, I gotta wonder about naming a holiday after the victim. – Barker Ajax

Turkey day is a lot like Xmas.

Remember one year in Flagstaff, mid-70s, didn’t eat meat, we had some manner of early tofu-proteena psuedo-bird. Looked like the dissection of a brown pound cake gone bad. Truly appreciated my young wife’s effort, it must be said.

The next year we went with eggplant parmigiana. She was Italian.

We think we know the history of Thanksgiving. The Pilgrims came over from England and landed at Plymouth Rock, had a bad winter, Squanto taught them to plant crops, they had a harvest festival, and now we celebrate it every year.

More complicated than that.

In September 1620, over one hundred (102) religious separatists set off on a small ship (the Mayflower, of course) from Plymouth, England, and landed near Cape Cod sixty-six (66) uncomfortable days later. The next month they set up a colony farther south, near Massachusetts Bay, still far north of their intended destination of Manhattan Island. Many colonists stayed aboard the ship as the weather turned colder. About half of them didn’t make it through the winter.

In March, those that survived moved ashore. Several days later they were met by a Patuxet Native American who, several years earlier, had been kidnapped by a sea captain, sold into slavery, escaped to London, then found his way back home on an exploratory expedition, learning English along the way. His name? Tisquantum. Squanto for short.

Squanto was truly the Pilgrims’ savior. He taught the malnourished settlers how to cultivate corn, catch fish, forage, extract maple sap, and avoid poisonous plants. He also brokered peace with the local Wampanoag tribe, and the resulting fifty (50) years of peace is one of the few examples of harmony between natives and settlers.

In the fall of 1621, the Plymouth colony’s fifty-three (53) Englishmen decided to throw a party to celebrate their first successful corn harvest, and ninety (90) native Wampanoag joined them. Governor William Bradford sent four men out to hunt birds, and the Wampanoag contributed five deer, “Deer Day” anybody?, to the celebration, which lasted for three days.

The exact date of the festival is unknown, but most likely happened between September 21 and November 9.

The meal was heavy on meat. Also, a lot of seafood, plenty of vegetables, fruits, nuts, and breads and porridges (and yes, turkey). Really was an abundance of riches, a meal worth remembering annually.

Americans celebrated a national day of Thanksgiving for many years before it was officially recognized. A magazine editor named Sarah Joseph Hale lead the charge to get the holiday on the books; in 1863 Abraham Lincoln declared the last Thursday in November would officially be celebrated as Thanksgiving Day. (Source: TheDailyMeal.com)

The first TV dinner was supposedly invented because of extra Thanksgiving turkeys in the early 1950s. The meal consisted of turkey, gravy, cornbread stuffing, sweet potatoes and buttered peas…all for just 98 cents.

Tired of waiting for an invite to the relatives holiday dinner, we accepted an invitation from the lovely couple next door. He’s just back from singing in Carnegie Hall. I won’t have to listen to a recording, I already checked. Union rules prohibit church choirs going viral.

I suppose I can listen to tales of what wealthy folks do in the Big Apple on a four-day weekend.

Just as long as they take their MAGA hats off during the meal.