EXTRA...

Everything you always wanted to know about Thanksgiving but were too afraid to ask

A dozen, different Turkey Day tales: some historical and some hysterical
Myths, Truths, Turkey & Beer, Why we almost spoke Spanish, How they slaughter the bird, What they REALLY ate that day & Pamela Anderson's feast

The Blogfather's "inside scoop": The True Turkey Tale 

                        "There goes the neighborhood."

Most of you Cape Codders think you know the true story of Thanksgiving ..... but you don't. You only know the sanitized, Plymouth version forced upon a gullible public by the Plymouth Area Chamber of Commerce in a failed attempt to enhance tourism at a time of year when no sensible tourist would venture north of the Mason-Dixon Line or Charleston, whichever comes first.I alone know the true tale because my wife's ancestor, Capt. Edward Bangs, who came over on the "Anne" which arrived a year after the "Mayflower," was around for that first thanksgiving in the Fall of 1621 to tell the true turkey tale.

Captain Bangs told his grandchildren this tale, and they have passed it down through the centuries.

He said that after surviving their first year on these unkind shores, the Pilgrims, or "Saints" as they were then called, planned to serve roast beef or roast lamb for the "Harvest Home Dinner" as they actually called that first feast.

Beefeaters get the bird
After all, these hearty folks were originally from England where the Queen's guards are called "Beefeaters." My wife's ancestor told the family that of course they ate cow whenever they had a feast, and if they didn't have a cow, they ate sheep.

The true story of that first holiday is quite simple, and more touching than the fairy tale they teach in school

The true story of that first holiday is quite simple, and more touching than the fairy tale they teach in school.

It all started with that famous Boston author Euell "Stalking the Wild Asparagus" Gibbon's original Plymouth ancestor who owned a small meat market and Dunkin' Donut franchise in Sagamore.

After that first horrible winter of 1620-21, the Pilgrims who survived harvested the crops they had planted that summer and made ready to slaughter a cow or at least a few sheep for the festival. But not all of the Pilgrims were successful farmers that first year, and a few had to buy their main course from Euell's great-great-great-great (3-more "greats") grandfather Ebenezer Gibbons who owned that local butcher shop.

Telling the True Turkey Tale
Late on the last Wednesday of November in 1621 one of the less fortunate Pilgrims came to Gibbon's shop to buy a slab of beef or a shank of lamb for his table. When he asked for either beast, Ebenezer Gibbons sadly told him that he had just sold the last hunk of prime rib to Capt. Miles Standish and the last lamb shank to Gov. William Bradford. He said he had nothing left to sell him for his holiday feast.

The distressed customer begged Gibbons to check the larder again and see what possible entree might remain for next day's big dinner.

Gibbons came back with a scraggly wild fowl which a local Native American had recently caught in the woods.

Gibbons opined that the beast resembled a guinea hen known to roam in Turkey, and offered it to the customer as a substitute, naming the fowl "turkey" after that Mid East country.

He even refused to charge for such a mangy, fowl-tasting repast.

The grateful customer grabbed the bird, and as he left the shop called back to Euell, "Thanks Gibbon !"

Of course, over the next 385 years his shouted "Thanks Gibbon" got slurred into what we call that holiday today,

Thanks Giving!

By Walter "Would you like to buy the Sagamore Bridge" Brooks
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The First Menu, Thanksgiving 1621
No ham, sweet potato or pumpkin pie

Our perceptions of that first "Harvest Feast" in Plymouth are colored largely by what we eat today,  but most of America's foods available in the 21st century were unheard of by those settlers 438 years agao.

Here is a list of the foods available to the Pilgrims for their 1621 Thanksgiving

FISH:  cod, bass, herring, shad, bluefish, and lots of eel
SHELLFISH:  clams, lobsters, mussels, and very small quantities of oysters
BIRDS:  wild turkey, goose, duck, crane, swan, partridge, and other miscellaneous waterfowl; they were also known to have occasionally eaten eagles (which "tasted like mutton" according to Winslow in 1623.)
OTHER MEAT:  venison (deer), possibly some salt pork or chicken.
GRAIN:  wheat flour, Indian corn and corn meal; barley (mainly for beer-making).
FRUITS:  raspberries, strawberries, grapes, plums, cherries, blueberries, gooseberries (these would have been dried, as none would have been in season).
VEGETABLES:  small quantity of peas, squashes (including pumpkins), beans
NUTS:  walnuts, chestnuts, acorns, hickory nuts, ground nuts
HERBS and SEASONINGS: onions, leeks, strawberry leaves, currants, sorrel, yarrow, carvel, brooklime, liverwort, watercress, and flax; from England they brought seeds and probably planted radishes, lettuce, carrots, onions, and cabbage.  Olive oil in small quantities may have been brought over, though the Pilgrims had to sell most of their oil and butter before sailing, in order to stay on budget.
OTHER:  maple syrup, honey; small quantities of butter, Holland cheese; and eggs.

"Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone somewhere may be happy"
     - H.L. MenckenSome startling omissions from the original Thanksgiving menu

• Ham.  (The Pilgrims most likely did not have pigs with them).
• Sweet Potatoes-Potatoes-Yams.  (These had not yet been introduced to New England).
• Corn on the cob. (Indian corn was only good for making cornmeal, not eating on the cob).
• Popcorn.  (Contrary to popular folklore, popcorn was not introduced at the 1621 Thanksgiving.  Indian corn could only be half-popped, and this wouldn't have tasted very good.)
• Cranberry sauce.  (Cranberries were available, but sugar was not.)
• Pumpkin Pie:  (They probably made a pumpkin pudding of sorts, sweetened by honey or syrup, which would be like the filling of a pumpkin pie, but there would be no crust or whipped topping.)  ________________

     The opposite of    
     Thanksgiving

Event would horrify Puritans

The modern holiday would horrify the Puritans, who observed a tradition that was quiet, deeply religious, and concerned with betterment, not bounty
   Another Thanksgiving approaches. It's that day when families across America gather to watch parades and competitive sports on television and to overindulge in stuffed turkeys, creamed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and rich pies.
   Every schoolchild in America knows the story of the original Thanksgiving. In 1621 in Plymouth, émigré English Calvinists struggled to make their way in the harsh climate of this New World. Wampanoag Indians helped them, teaching them to grow corn...
   Thanksgiving's real roots, then, are deeper and more spiritual than the popular image - and lie in Europe, not America...  Globe.  Make room for Sir Ferdinando at Thanksgiving table
Or why we came close to speaking Spanish around here

Thanksgiving always brings with it images from one of America’s favorite legends — the doughty band of Pilgrims embarking from the Mayflower onto Plymouth Rock, the unpredictable Indians, the ravages of the first deadly winter, the death toll and finally the first Thanksgiving in 1621 and the subsequent triumph of godly Englishmen over a vast continent of wilderness.

That’s all good stuff, but it leaves out a lot, including the first English settlement in New England at Sagadahoc (Kennebec) in Maine in 1607, the role of English-speaking, world-traveling Indians like Squanto in getting the new settlement established, and the tireless efforts of Sir Ferdinando Gorges from 1605 to 1640 to somehow people the shores of New England with colonists loyal to the English crown. In the panoply of New England’s heroes, Sir Ferdinando deserves a high place. Along with Capt. John Smith of Pocahontas fame, Sir Ferdinando was this region’s staunch promoter and propagandist, through good times and bad. He spent most of his fortune, plus the estates of his four wives, financing various expeditions to the New World. And yet he is not even mentioned in “Mayflower,” Nathaniel Philbrick’s widely praised account of the Pilgrims.

The saga doesn’t begin at Plymouth in 1620. Europeans had been fishing New England waters and setting up fish-drying operations along the New England coast for more than a century before. The French, already profiting from an extensive trade in furs, in 1604 founded Quebec and announced that “Acadia,” including what is now Bar Harbor, was a French possession.  That caught the attention of various English seamen, politicians and entrepreneurs, the most important of whom was Sir Ferdinando Gorges, master of the Port of Plymouth (England).

Sir Ferdinando already had become fascinated by tales of the New World that he heard from Indians who had been captured by English explorers and brought as slaves to England. One of them may have been Squanto, the Indian who later saved the Plymouth colony from collapse and failure. One account holds that Sir Ferdinando taught Squanto and other Indian captives how to speak English...  Telegram.
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Do you really want to eat turkey?
The diary of a Turkey slaughterer

The alarm rings at 3:45 a.m. “I reach for the ibuprofen. Without it my hands are too sore and swollen to even close . . . much less hold a turkey’s legs.
   “Wearing a pair of rubber gloves, cotton gloves and taping them doesn’t help when you’re banging into shackles all day. The flesh is still raw and exposed.
    “I dress with the video cam that’s become part of my daily outfit carefully hidden and fortify myself with enough food to get through the work day.
    “When we arrive at House of Raeford the trucks full of live turkeys are already waiting to be unloaded; it’s not even 5:30 a.m.”
    So begins the diary of “Sam” — not his real name — who worked as an undercover investigator for Mercy for Animals (MFA), a national, not-for-profit animal-advocacy organization, earlier this year while employed as a “live hanger” at House of Raeford’s turkey slaughterhouse in Raeford, N.C.
    House of Raeford Farms Inc. (HORF), based in in Raeford, is the seventh largest turkey producer in the U.S., with seven facilities in North and South Carolina and Louisiana, where it breeds, slaughters and processes chickens and turkeys.
    While slaughtering turkeys is not often one’s first choice of work, House of Raeford has an especially checkered past. In 2003 a chlorine-gas leak at HORF’s Rose Hill, N.C., chicken plant killed worker Bruce Glover, 39. The following year an ammonia spill at the same plant forced the evacuation of two towns. And last year HORF employee Pedro P. Amaya, 42, was found shot to death in the mobile home he shared with three other poultry workers; the apparent motive was robbery, including theft of $60 of pain pills.
    A “live hanger” culture exists in slaughter plants, says Sam, in which there is no recognition of a turkey or chicken being alive or capable of pain.
As they unloaded trucks, workers routinely threw birds from one tier to another, letting them fall 20 feet, swung them around by their feet, “boxed” them as they hung upside down and held them under truck wheels to be crushed. ( Click here or photo on left to see video of plant and the physical abuse.).
    Workers pulled heads and legs off turkeys when they were stuck in crates and when they weren’t, just for the hell of it. Workers even inserted their fingers into their cloacae (vaginal cavities) and removed eggs, which they would throw at each other...Thanks, but No Thanks

The debate over "the war on Christmas" spreads to Thanksgiving

Anyone who has ever had to listen to foodies argue over which wine pairs best with turkey knows that Thanksgiving can inspire vehement—and tiresome—disagreement. But of all the questions connected with our celebration of Thanksgiving, none provokes as much heat as the debate over religion's place at the table.
   A few years ago, some Christians began to sound the alarm about a "war on Christmas," alleging that schools, courts, and local governments were transforming a sacred holiday into a secularized winter festival. Now, much as the 24-hour Christmas music on the radio seems to start earlier each year, a few believers are voicing their worry about the secularization of our society in November instead of December. Concerned about the eroding religious dimension of Thanksgiving, they urge a return to a more sacred holiday. If the war-on-Christmas crowd asks us to put Christ back into Christmas, these Thanksgiving religionists urge us to celebrate Thanksgiving with the emphasis on thanking God. But complaints about a secularized Thanksgiving are even less convincing than the outcry over Christmas... But the problem is that holidays turn into a tug of war between cold, hard history and comforting popular folklore, between fact and faith. Shouldn't our holidays be able to accommodate both? Slate
    But another humane alternative is for people to look at the struggling and terrified turkeys hanging upside down and ask themselves: Am I really that hungry? Read the rest in Projo.
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Thankful for beer

By Jacob Stewart 

This week, students get a well-deserved break. A hiatus from working on papers and creating massive projects, the IU community is preparing for its home stretch with a few days off to let its hair down before the sprint to finals week. And what better way to spend those days than with nagging parents and relatives whose names you can barely remember, hoping that the prayer will be over soon so that you can turn the damn game back on. Ah, the joy of spending time with family. But if you’re looking to formulate a more exciting Thanksgiving break, I suggest you put down the turkey leg and pick up the Wild Turkey Bourbon. Like all holidays (and a whole mess of other activities) Thanksgiving can be enhanced by the consumption of alcohol and the drunken ramblings that follow.
   The majority of us have a drunken uncle who spends Thanksgiving celebrations brooding in the corner, not because someone took the last turkey leg but because somebody took away his Natural Light. As we get older, we begin to sympathize with the man, understanding his need to get a little juiced before hanging out with these people. After all you can’t pick your family, but you can certainly pick your beer. So instead of the long hours of small talk and bickering, perhaps carrying a flask and making regular “bathroom” visits is in order. You could even share your secret with Uncle Charlie and let him have a few swigs. Now that’s family bonding.
   Not to mention that being a little blitzed during the celebration could just make you the life of the party. There’s nothing like sitting with the men of the family and slurring expletives at the T.V., while threatening a physical confrontation with an enemy cousin (a tradition developed in 1621 when, after a huge feast of turkey and vegetables, the Pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians sat together to watch the Dallas Cowboys kick the Washington Redskins’ asses). Not to mention that with every drink you get smarter and everything you say sounds like the wisdom of Aristotle – your aunts will be very impressed.
   At the end of the feast (and secret alcohol consumption) the family will leave and you will once again be in sweet solitude. But if you’re not one who likes to be alone – especially while intoxicated – then there’s always the option of calling up some old friends and challenging them to a drinking game (one of my favorite Thanksgiving traditions).
   So this holiday season, don’t forget to stop by the local liquor store and pick up some holiday cheer. A quick drink with your dad before the endurance trial that is Thanksgiving dinner can make the whole day worthwhile. Sharing a shot with your mom before she puts the turkey in the oven will give the meat just the right amount of char. Having fun with your family on Thanksgiving is easy. But for some of us, it just takes a little bit of Grandpa’s cough medicine to get along.
   Happy Thanksgiving!
Reprinted with permission of the Indiana Daily Student. 
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History of Thanksgiving and what they ate that day

Ever wonder what the pilgrims and their Native American guests really ate at the first feast? The truth may surprise you. Contrary to popular belief, hey didn't sit down to a meal featuring turkey, corn, cranberries, and pumpkin pie (in fact, they didn't even have forks!).

What foods topped the table at the first harvest feast?
   Historians aren't completely certain about the full bounty, but it's safe to say the pilgrims weren't gobbling up pumpkin pie or playing with their mashed potatoes. Following is a list of the foods that were available to the colonists at the time of the 1621 feast. However, the only two items that historians know for sure were on the menu are venison and wild fowl, which are mentioned in primary sources. The most detailed description of the "First Thanksgiving" comes from Edward Winslow from A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, in 1621:
   "Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, among other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed upon our governor, and upon the captain, and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakersof our plenty."  Thanksgiving History  
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Pamela Anderson and a Vegetarian Thanksgiving

Pamela Anderson has been vegetarian since she was a teenager and she's always focused on her work with PETA. Now, she's got an idea that'll promote vegetarianism and will help homeless people this Thanksgiving.
   Pammy is going to serve vegetarian dishes all night on Thanksgiving at an unnamed homeless centre in Las Vegas.
   The exact centre will be kept a secret because it's meant to be between Pam and those she's serving only! No fans, no Paparazzi, no autographs!
   Pammy says of this: "The holiday season can be especially hard for those who find themselves homeless, and it’s murder on turkeys. With so many healthy and delicious options nowadays, it’s easy to have a holiday meal that gives even turkeys something to be thankful for."
   The meal is going to be Gardein’s Veggie Stuffed Turkey Roast With Wild Rice and Cranberries. Although it's turkey, it's actually faux turkey.
   I wonder what that tastes like! I hope those homeless people will like it! The last thing they need is someone telling them what to eat and what 'not' to eat!
   "Every time we go by KFC, my kids ask me to honk and they yell 'Boo' out the window." -Pamela Anderson
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Mayflower myths exposed

Nathaniel Philbrick had two fuzzy, competing and faulty impressions of the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving.
   There was the sweet, childhood image, a bountiful table in a bucolic setting with feasting Englishmen in the foreground and American Indians looking on.
And there was the grown-up, cynical perspective: The Pilgrims as 17th-century English conquerors and the Plymouth feast little more than a myth.
   Philbrick, author of “Mayflower,” spent three years researching the Pilgrims’ voyage and what came after, including the complex and evolving relationships between settlers and Indians. He found not the caricatures of his fuzzy impressions but real humans capable of kindness and murder, of lasting conciliation and sudden treachery, of charity and the ugliest of greed.
   Philbrick’s book was a finalist for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in history. He lives on Nantucket Island, Mass.
   They originally were destined not for New England but for the Hudson River. The plans were to set up on a large, navigable river and to set up fur trading with the Indians. But they were more than 200 miles off course to the north.
What were you able to learn about the feast that has become our Thanksgiving celebration?
   It’s kind of an intimidating thing to write about. If there’s anything that’s encrusted with legend and myth, it’s the first Thanksgiving. It turns out everything we know about the first Thanksgiving came from a letter from Edward Winslow. It’s just a paragraph in that letter. They never called it Thanksgiving. That was a term applied in the 19th century. This was more in keeping with a harvest festival, typical of any English town. It would have occurred in late September, early October. Winslow said they had ducks and geese in abundance. He makes no mention of turkeys, although they could have had turkeys. There were plenty of turkeys around. We also know they had five deer provided by the Indians, the Wampanoags. This is where the story gets interesting. We think of it as a predominantly Pilgrim affair. But, by this time, half the Pilgrims had died. There were just over 50 of them left.    They would have been outnumbered by the Indians 2-to-1.
   There were too many people to have the feast indoors. And there would have been outdoor fires for cooking, very different from the sort of domesticated dinner we all try to re-create in our homes. If you want to really have a first Thanksgiving, go camping. Shoot something, and eat it.
Describe what you learned about those first 50 years after the Mayflower landing.
   It was an unusual time, given the subsequent course of American history. There was peaceful coexistence between the Wampanoag and the Pilgrims, although it was not a beneficent embrace between two cultures. There were flare-ups. When tensions would increase or something happened to precipitate conflict, what you see are William Bradford and Edward Winslow and Massasoit making conscious efforts to work things out. They owed a debt to each other, and that was understood in that generation.
But then came King Philip’s War, when things fell apart. What went wrong?
   What I saw in doing this book was how much the personal commitment of the leaders matters. Diplomacy is hard work, especially when there are such cultural differences. The tragedy of the story is that with the second generation, they lose that appreciation so quickly.
   King Philip’s War is the war that American history has forgotten. We start with the Pilgrims and in most histories leapfrog to the American Revolution. New England had changed radically in 55 years. As more and more English survived, land became a big part of this. Land had gone into English hands in a huge way. From the native perspective, they said, “What good was this alliance? We’ve lost our birthright.” And with the leaders not liking each other much, it leads to war.
   This was an extraordinarily brutal conflict when you look at the percentage of the populations killed, more than twice as bloody as the Civil War.
   You can say the English won, but one-third of the towns in New England were burned and abandoned, and they would pay for the war for decades. Until then, they had remarkable independence from the mother country, but afterward, they had to throw themselves on the mercy of England. You could say this created the tensions that would erupt 100 years later in the American Revolution.
For Indians who were not killed or forced to leave the region, many were captured and crowded on ships, sent to the West Indies and sold as slaves. The State.