This food-based holiday, with all its various and unique family traditions, has evolved over the past 400 years. And many, but not all, know that it is based on the myths and outright lies around a 1621 “harvest feast” shared between starving pilgrims and the Wampanoag people. Later, NatGeo writes that this story was changed into a post-Civil-War era patriotic and religious gathering, until modern day where it is now a holiday focused on good food and spending quality time with friends and family. So how has this fest changed over time?
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History of Thanksgiving Holiday
NatGeo writes about this holiday, starting with what I understand to be the typical celebration as recently practiced in the USA: Every fourth Thursday of November, Americans gather around tables covered with turkey, potatoes, cranberries, stuffing, and more. Over the feast, they share what they’re most thankful for from the previous year. Some also celebrate the day by watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade or a football game or even by running a 5K race. But the holiday is much more, and much less, with a history that spans 401 years, war and peace, genocide and survival, opportunism and destruction. In 2022, many of us want to reclaim this holiday for this age and separate it from its history. That includes the food.
1621 – 1942 Shifts in Thanksgiving
War-based Thanks (1)
1621 Smithsonian writes that in truth, massacres, disease and American Indian tribal politics are what shaped the Pilgrim-Indian alliance at the root of the holiday.
1777 The first recognition of a single, nationally celebrated holiday of Thanksgiving came in a proclamation by the Second Continental Congress, a year after it signed the Declaration of Independence (1). As a paraphrase, the notice indicates the country celebrate the of 18th December as Thanksgiving for:
- Smashed acorns cooked in water=Gruel watery with berries
- Thanking God for all he bestowed upon the USA.
- And to thank God for forgiving and blotting out our sins.
- And finally to continue to support us in our just and necessary war in defense and for the establishment of our inalienable rights and liberties.
1814 Nearly every year a similar type of proclamation was made, thanking God that the USA continued to survive various skirmishes and calamities. James Madison’s 1814 proclamation was issued thanking God for America’s continued fortunes in a time of public calamity and war, meaning the War of 1812.
1873 But not until 1873 did President Lincoln proclaim a annual and national holiday on the last Thursday in November.
- The holiday was to observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.
- And to commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans. mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity, and union.
1939 WaPo writes that in 1939, half of America celebrated Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November and the other half celebrated “Franksgiving,” on November 23rd as an acknowledgement and thanks to President Roosevelt for changing the date of the celebration (a week earlier, on November 23rd), so that there would be more shopping days before Christmas.
1941 In late 1941, after the United States had entered World War II, Congress approved and the recently reelected third term Roosevelt signed a proclamation to set Thanksgiving, starting in 1942, as the fourth Thursday in November, where it remains today.
PattyCooks Gratitude Dinner
With a slight change of title I decided this year to make dinner based on American Indiginous dishes based on the wild and native foods of the country.
I have lived in Washington state, have participated in the making of a totem pole (in a limited capacity), and have attended a few gift-sharing potlatch events. The foods I have eaten during these activities were salmon, shellfish, game, nuts, berries, squash, fruits from trees, and greens (1, 2). Now I have also lived a long time in California, and tribes here utilized similar food that were growing and roaming or swimming around along the West coast: nuts, fish, game, corn, beans, berries, fruit trees, tubers, greens, chia seeds, and squash (3, 4). There are so much healthy, tasty, and spiritual foods available to us, if we look.
Menu
The menu I envisioned was one very colorful, full of flavor and healthy.
- Wild watercress salad
- Salmon
- Fried cornbread
- Sweet berry wild rice
- Three-Sisters Succotash of squash, beans, and corn
- Maple Baked Pumpkin
Gratitude Dishes History + Recipe
Watercress Salad
Watercress, not a native plant, but one that has been naturalized, became a foraged food staple for Cherokees during Spring and Summer. This is a leafy green, perennial plant found around creeks or springs. It is in the family of wasabi and mustard, so it is a spicy little plant.
- Wild Watercress Salad
- 2 to 3 bunches wild or cultivated watercress, rinse and discard any tough stems, use a salad spinner to remove water and let it dry.
- Combine 3T apple cider vinegar and 2T real maple syrup in the salad bowl.
- Slowly add 1/4C sunflower oil while whisking.
- Add the watercress and 1 thinly sliced green onion or wild ramps and mix well.
- Taste and add salt and pepper to taste.
Salmon
ModernAdventure wrote about that the Indigenous Peoples in the Pacific Northwest shared the once abundant lakes, rivers, and streams that included the revered salmon. In fact, salmon has been critical to all aspects of life, from the mundane of economies and food to the spiritual of philosophies and cultural celebrations, for Pacific Northwest tribes. The cooking technique would involve Cedar planks or stakes over an open fire. To some tribes in California, they had the same connection with Salmon, cooking them on sticks over open fires.
Mustard plants and Maple trees are both native to North America. So I am going to use the ingredients those plant provide as a marinade.
- Roast Salmon
- Preheat oven 450F
- Rinse the Salmon, then dry with paper towels, and season with Kosher salt and pepper
- Then place, skin side down, on a parchment lined baking sheet
- Make the sauce
- 2T coarse (country style) Dijon mustard
- 2T real maple syrup
- 1t olive oil
- 1t kosher salt
- 1/2t paprika
- 1/2t ground black pepper
- Brush half the sauce over the salmon and bake for for 15min
- Then remove the salmon, brush the rest of the sauce on the fish and bake for 10min more
- Serve
Fried Cornbread
I chose a cornbread instead of fry-bread due to the controversy on wether fry-bread was a true Indigenous American food or a symbol of colonialism (1). There seems to be total agreement that the batter-based cornbread is indigenous to the Americas.
This is a simple mix of self-rising cornmeal (okay that was not here in the USA way back when, but it saves me time) with a bit of salt, and covered with boiling water. After mixing well with a spoon, let it cool a bit, then using your hands take golfball sized blobs of batter and form into a ball to flatten and carefully drop into a cast iron skillet of hot veggie oil (around 1/2”). Fry until golden brown, then flip, then remove from oil and place on a drying rack to cool.
- Fried Corn Bread
- Add 1-1/2C self-rising cornmeal into a bowl
- With 1/2t salt and mix well
- Pour 2C boiling water over the dry ingredients and mix
- Form and fry
Sweet Berry Wild Rice
SmithsonianMag shared this recipe and while I made some changes, this is in agreement with several recipes that come from Native people.
Preheat oven to 350F. Peel + slice squash into mouth-sized cubes and toss in maple syrup. Place on a parchment lined baking sheet and cook ~20 minutes. Meanwhile, cook the wild rice and the sauce. For the sauce: combined berries and maple syrup, water, pie spice, and salt in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Once boiling reduce heat and let simmer until the sauce is reduced. Then combined the squash, rice, and sauce, mix gently, poured onto a platter and topped with the chopped seeds.
- Sweet Berry Wild Rice
- 1 ½C cooked and cooled wild rice
- ½ small buttercup or acorn squash
- ¼C +2T pure organic maple syrup
- ½C sliced strawberries
- ½C fresh blueberries, plus ¼ cup set aside for garnish
- ½C fresh cranberries
- 1C water
- 1T coarsely chopped pumpkin seeds
- ¼t pie spice
- Pinch of salt
Three Sisters Refers to Food + a Planting Style
The term three sisters refers to the main North American crops of: corn, beans, and squash. It is often a term also used in gardening due to the way these three support each other. Corn provides tall stalks for the beans to climb so that they are not out-competed by sprawling squash vines. Beans provide nitrogen to fertilize the soil while also stabilizing the tall corn during heavy winds. Beans are nitrogen-fixers meaning they host rhizobia on their roots that can take nitrogen, a much needed plant nutrient, from the air and convert it into forms that can be absorbed by plant roots. The large leaves of squash plants shade the ground which helps retain soil moisture and prevent weeds (5).
To Indigenous Peoples, the three sisters are part of many stories (6, 7). PBS writes: The Three Sisters also offer spiritual connection and appear in mythology across tribes, from the Hopis of the Southwest to the Oneidas of the Midwest and the Iroquois in the Northeast, but my personal connection to these staple crops is removed from this mythology and tradition.
Finally the three sisters are critical food by themselves, and are ingredients for soup, succotash, and a variety of other dishes. For what I am making, the Three Sister Succotash comes from the Narragansett word sohquttahhash, meaning “broken corn kernels.”
3 Sister Succotash
This is a dish created by the New England Indigenous Peoples, and shared with the Colonialists during their struggles. Now, many people refer to this stew as a dump dish as they throw in okra, tomatoes, peppers, shrimp, garlic, and lima beans, etc.
- Heat 2T veggie oil in a skillet, sauté 1 large diced onion until translucent
- Add 2C raw and cubed pumpkin (reserve pumpkin shell for serving)
- Add 2C black beans
- Add 4C trimmed snap beans
- Add 1C frozen sweet corn
- And 2C vegetable stock and simmer with the lid on until all the ingredients are tender, ~40min.
- Add 5 julienned sage leaves
- Add 4T sweet butter
- Add kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
- Once ready, serve in the hollowed pumpkin shell