Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the United States! This is a day that seemingly is getting less and less coverage, as Christmas gets more and more (due mainly to the commercialization of the holiday in my opinion.) In an effort to put Thanksgiving back in the spotlight, I thought I’d share some fun, “odd” facts about the Holiday of Thanksgiving that you may or may not have known. (Facts taken from the History Channel Website.)
Did you know that:
- “Historians have recorded ceremonies of thanks among European settlers in North America, including British colonists in Berkeley Plantation, Virginia. At this site near the Charles River in December of 1619, a group of British settlers led by Captain John Woodlief knelt in prayer and pledged ‘Thanksgiving’ to God for their healthy arrival after a long voyage across the Atlantic. This event has been acknowledged by some scholars and writers as the official first Thanksgiving among European settlers on record.”
- It’s not for certain that Turkey was on the original menu for the Pilgrim’s feast. All that is “officially” mentioned by Edward Winslow in A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, in 1621 is: Wild fowl, and venison.
- The pilgrims didn’t use forks; they ate with spoons, knives, and their fingers.
- Pilgrims “wiped their hands on large cloth napkins which they also used to pick up hot morsels of food.”
- “Vegetable dishes, one of the main components of our modern celebration, didn’t really play a large part in the feast mentality of the seventeenth century. Depending on the time of year, many vegetables weren’t available to the colonists.” (And children everywhere today are wishing for Thanksgivings of yesteryear now!)
- A modern staple on the table for Thanksgiving: Cranberry sauce. Well, it was not on the table for the first Thanksgiving. The colonists had cranberries but no sugar at this time.
- Pumpkin pie was not served, as the Pilgrims didn’t have ovens to be able to bake pies. That, and the recipe for pumpkin pie didn’t exist yet. There was however, a recipe for stewed pumpkin. I for one, am thankful to not be eating stewed pumpkin today.
- Meats that may have actually been on the menu for the first Thanksgiving (since these meats were available to them): Cod, Eel, Clams, Lobster, Wild Turkey, Goose, Duck, Crane, Swan, Partridge, Eagles
Venison, and Seal. Yes…eagles, swans, crane and seal.
- Sarah Josepha Hale, the enormously influential magazine editor and author who waged a tireless campaign to make Thanksgiving a national holiday in the mid-19th century, was also the author of the classic nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”
- “The original feast in 1621 occurred sometime between September 21 and November 11. Unlike our modern holiday, it was three days long.”
Be sure to take some time to reflect on what you have to be thankful for! From all of us at Century Marketing, have a very Happy Thanksgiving!
