Thanksgiving:
The Next Generation
by Brian L. Patton
While we are brought up to believe that Thanksgiving is based on that “first” feast shared between the pilgrims of Plymouth and the indigenous Wampanoag tribe in 1621, the actual origins of this holiday and how we celebrate it today are not quite that precise. Thanksgiving’s existence is more of an evolution, molded by an aggregate of occurrences throughout our history, instead of a direct extension of a single event.
In the early 1600s, settlers arriving in the New World would hold a “day of thanksgiving” to God to celebrate their safe journey. Native American tradition, as well as English tradition, also dictated regular feasts in celebration of successful harvests. And the feast in 1621 between the Wampanoag tribe and the Plymouth settlers was no different.
Squanto, who resided with the Wampanoag and learned English during his enslavement and travels in Europe, acted as an interpreter, teaching the settlers how to catch eels and shellfish, and how to grow corn. With the help of the Wampanoag, the settlers survived their first winter and had their first successful harvest. And, as many did before them, they celebrated with a feast.
In the ensuing decades, these kinds of “thanksgivings” or “days of prayer” occurred sporadically, and at all different times of the year. Whether it was to celebrate the end of a drought, the arrival of colonists, or a military victory during the Revolutionary War, there were similar feasts offering thanks to God for their good fortune.
During the American Revolution, the Continental Congress declared that the individual states should conduct at least one day of thanksgiving per year. And after the war, President George Washington proclaimed the first Thanksgiving Day, designated by the national government in 1789. This, however, did not solidify Thanksgiving as an annual, national holiday. That didn’t happen until Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day in 1863. (Man, they sure did a lot of proclaiming and declaring back then. At least those leaders were doing something. I’m not sure what ours are doing now. Seems more like kids fighting in the sandbox.)
Speaking of silly political sparring, a funny thing happened in 1939 during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency. That year, November had five Thursdays. Since the country was still suffering through The Great Depression, Roosevelt decided to keep Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday, giving store owners and merchants an extra week to advertise their Christmas goods (since it was not acceptable to do so before Thanksgiving). Republicans did not like this, however, calling it an affront to Lincoln’s memory. Because of this, there were two Thanksgivings celebrated in 1939. November 30 was known as the “Republican Thanksgiving,” and November 23 was known as the “Democratic Thanksgiving” or “Franksgiving.” Smartly, Texas ended up taking full advantage of the dispute, and took both days as government holidays.
Roosevelt, then, kept the official Thanksgiving day on the penultimate Thursday of November (for the same economic reasons) for the next two years. Then in 1941, Congress took care of the issue once and for all, by passing a joint resolution stating that Thanksgiving would be celebrated on the last Thursday in November. Later, to avoid future confusion, the Senate passed an amendment declaring that the holiday be celebrated on the fourth Thursday. This brings us to today—where Thanksgiving has evolved from scattered celebrations to an annual, national holiday.But what about the food?
Believe it or not, those early celebrations did not consist of turkey, gravy, bread stuffing, and mashed potatoes. And they definitely did not have any cranberry sauce out of a can! What they did eat was fish and shellfish, like eel, cod, clams, and lobster, which were abundant in the region. Also very common was venison, or deer meat. There were birds such as duck, geese, swan, and turkey that were also consumed, but they were by no means the centerpiece of the feasts.
The emergence of turkey as the main dish of Thanksgiving dinner was part practical and part cultural. Like the holiday itself, it was an evolution. As time progressed, turkey became the most sensible option for large feasts for a number of reasons. Deer, while abundant, was difficult to hunt and time-consuming to slaughter. Fish and shellfish were also not practical because a great deal of it was required to feed a large group. Turkeys, on the other hand, were easy to catch and slaughter, and by November, spring-born turkeys were big enough to feed a crowd. Furthermore, in 16th century England, it was common to serve geese and swan during celebrations. So serving large fowl during a celebratory feast was a part of English culture that the settlers brought with them.
By the time Lincoln proclaimed Thanksgiving a national holiday, turkeys had taken hold as the go-to entrée for the celebration. Even further solidifying the turkey’s place on the Thanksgiving table was the 20th century’s industrialization of the food system, which made them bigger, cheaper, and easy to obtain.
The 17th century settlers ate deer, fish, and fowl because that was all that was available to them. They had vegetables, too, but variety was limited by region and season, so they did what they needed to do to survive. We of the 21st century no longer have these limitations. The American food system is such that we can get an endless variety of vegetables, whole grains, and legumes in every corner of the country.
Like ourselves and everything around us, the Thanksgiving that we celebrate today arose by way of evolution. And as we know, evolution is a constant. The ability that technology affords us—to easily gather and disseminate information—is accelerating our culture’s evolution. Never before have we had such access to information about how our food is grown and how it gets to our plates. Until relatively recent years, we could only believe what our culture had taught us.
So knowing all that we know now about our food, why do we still eat Turkey on Thanksgiving? Some may say, “It’s tradition!” But I say, “It’s advertising!” Turkey became the tradition out of the necessity of our ancestors. And since there is no longer this necessity, the “tradition” is no longer valid. The evolution of our society has taken us from having to be sustained by what was immediately around us, to having an endless selection of wholly nutritious, plant-based sources of protein, vitamins, and minerals, all at arm’s reach.
Through advertising, the companies who produce animal products have done a spectacular job of making us believe that our very lives depend on eating “incredible edible” eggs for breakfast, beef for dinner, and turkey at Thanksgiving. Our good sense has been blinded by a cornucopia of billboards, print ads, and TV commercials voiced by gruff cowboy-sounding guys.
If you look at it from an evolutionary standpoint, eating turkey (or any animal products, for that matter) no longer makes sense for humans. The species of animals that inhabit our planet today evolved because their ancestors figured out how to stay alive. It seems we have been led astray from our natural evolutionary road, and have actually begun devolving. While eating meat was once vital to the survival of the settlers, factory farming and over-consumption has completely turned the tables on us, and now it contributes to our illness and death! But somehow we don’t make any changes. And instead of becoming a healthier, stronger species, we’re contracting bone disease at 60, dying of heart disease at 50, and being diagnosed with diet-related illnesses before we hit puberty! There’s even been a re-emergence of gout. That’s right, gout! It’s not a surprise, really. Most of our meat is irradiated and injected with an amount of chemicals and hormones that would make Charlie Sheen say, “Whoa, maybe you should slow down a bit.” If then, you take into account the toll that industrial meat production takes on the land, sea, air, and overall energy of the universe, it is clear that there is not one remaining shred of value in eating a turkey on Thanksgiving.
Okay, so maybe there’s no inherent value to eating turkey, but at least it tastes good. Right? As I remove my history hat, and don my chef’s hat, I struggle to remember exactly what turkey tastes like. And that’s probably because it tastes like chicken, which, if you think about it, tastes like nothing. Why else would we have to douse it with gravy and scoop mashed potatoes onto the same forkful before we eat it? Every other food item that graces our Thanksgiving table is superior in flavor to the meat of a turkey.
So how do we get our evolution back on track? We start with our plate! Get rid of the things that are holding us back, and fill those spaces with what will take us forward. Take, for instance, Vegin’ Out, a vegan home delivery service in Southern California, where I just happen to be Executive Chef. Each year we offer the Thanksgiving Dinner for Two, consisting of things like roasted shallot mashed potatoes, green beans with caramelized onions, stuffing style quinoa, and some sort of “turkey replacement” item, like seitan. When you put that all on a plate, I’ll be darned if it doesn’t exactly resemble that Thanksgiving feast we all grew up with. And it tastes pretty darn good, too, if I do say so myself.
And that’s just one option! If you’re not in our area and want to make it all yourself, every side dish related to Thanksgiving can easily be made without animal products, and be as equally, if not more, delicious than its “ancestor.” There are also plenty of faux turkey items that you can pick up at the store. And if you’re so inclined, you can take a look at TheSexyVegan.com for the Thanksgiving side dish recipe series I did last year. I know, shameless.
Finally, if you really think about it, we can even look at the Thanksgiving table as a microcosm of our world. We are surrounded by so much good and potential in our periphery, but we’re too distracted by the dinosaur in the middle of the room. The so-called “traditions” and old ways of thinking in regards to religion, politics, business, economics, and, of course, food, are blinding us from the new and exciting things that are surprisingly within our reach. It’s like how the symphony of fresh, vibrant, nutritious, and delicious food making up our Thanksgiving side dishes is brushed aside in favor of a big, pale, flavorless, monolith that not only adversely affects our bodies, but our entire planet. If we take one thoughtful look around the room, or the table, or the world, it’s obvious what needs to go and what needs to stay. It’s up to us to steer humanity’s evolution. And we can start with Thanksgiving.Brian L. Patton is executive chef of Vegin’ Out, Southern California’s premier vegan delivery service, and author of The Sexy Vegan Cookbook: Extraordinary Food from an Ordinary Dude. For more information, please visit www.VeginOut.com and www.TheSexyVegan.com.
