[rollei_list] Re: USian Thanksgiving

Here is another expedition of note (from yesterday's paper):

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/opinion/26davis.html?em

John



----- Original Message ----
From: Marc James Small <marcsmall@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, November 27, 2008 8:36:32 AM
Subject: [rollei_list] USian Thanksgiving

We in the US and its possessions celebrate the 
fourth Thursday in November as a day of 
thanksgiving.  This was a practice first started 
at Berkeley Plantation on the James River in 
Virginia in 1619 and later repeated by the 
Pilgrims in Massachusetts in 1625.  The practice 
then fell into abeyance for three generations but 
was revived in New England in the early 1700's 
and became an annual event.  It became a national 
holiday when Abraham Lincoln declared a National Day of Thanksgiving in 1863.

Thanksgiving is a survival of the old European 
"Feast of Harvest Home", one of the four serious 
holidays in the late Medieval church 
calendar.  These were linked around the 
solistices and equinoctes -- Christmas, Easter, 
Midsummer, and Harvest Home.  (The older 
pre-Christian pastoral calendar survived in the 
"cross-quarter days", forty-five days away from 
these:  Walpurgisnacht/Candelmas, May 
Day/Beltane, Lammastide, and All Saints'.)  The 
USian growing season is delayed about two months 
behind that of Europe -- we are much to the 
south, after all -- and so we ended up 
celebrating the Feast of Harvest Home two months 
late as Thanksgiving.  (Many USian churches now 
conduct a "Blessing of the Animals", whatever 
that may be, around the fall equinox.  Heck, I 
was going to join PETA until I learned that it 
wasn't, "People Eating Tasty Animals"!)

Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried to shift it to 
the second Thursday with general resistance.  He 
did so to increase the Christmas sales 
season.  Those who appreciate decently mature 
movies may recall the Bing Crosby vehicle, 
HOLIDAY INN, the movie which introduced the song, 
"White Christmas".  Every holiday in that movie 
is introduced by a cartoon bit.  The one for 
Thanksgiving shows the turkey stepping from the 
fourth to the second to the fourth Thursday on a 
calendar and shrugging its shoulders in confusion.

In any event, the event is now celebrated by 
family and friends gathering for a traditional 
meal based around a roast turkey and mashed 
potatoes and yams and stuffing, often flushed out 
with ham and salads.  It is all followed up with 
pumpkin pie and coffee.  USians love turkey 
left-overs but it is absolute necessity that, to 
fit in, we all bitch and gripe about the need to 
eat such, and to admit to liking turkey 
left-overs is equivalent to denying that baseball is the national sport.

Incidentally, every USian who has every read an 
Agatha Christie novel knows that the British have 
five meal-breaks a day:  breakfast (with those 
vile sausages), elevenses, lunch, tea, and 
dinner.  <he grins>  There is a cultural divide 
in the US:  in the North and West, we eat 
breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  In the South and 
South-West, it is breakfast, dinner, and 
supper.  In the US Army, it was on the Southern 
pattern until the Civil War but has remained, 
breakfast, lunch, and dinner since 1862.

Now, a pumpkin is an American variant of the 
basic gourd.  Disgusting as squash can be to eat, 
pumpkin pie can be a delight.  Take some small 
pumpkins, say, 6" (15cm) across.  Boil them.  Cut 
them open and remove the seeds and internal 
mess.  Cut out the meat.  Puree this and mix it 
with spices to taste -- cinnamon is a norm.  Some 
folks add milk or cream or sour cream.  Again, 
let your taste buds be your guide.  Place it in a 
pie shell.  Bake it, not long.  When the surface begins splitting, take it out.

Cranberry sauce is also a norm for Thanksgiving 
and Chrismtas.  Here in the US, we have "National 
Public Radio", generally viewed as the medium for 
geeks, nuts, lefty-loonies, and cultural 
snobs.  For the past quarter-century, there has 
been an annual discussion on NPR of "Mother 
Stamberg's Cranberry Relish" recipe.  This SOUNDS 
gross and does come out Pepto-Bismo Pink, but is 
quite tasty.  The recipe can be found at <http://www.npr.org>

Enjoy, guys.  I hope that our USian members fed 
well.  And one of the blessings I have to be 
thankful for, this and every year for the past 
fifteen, has been this List and its members.  Thanks, folks, and be well!

Herr Dokter Leutnant-Oberst Marc James Small <he grins>
Rollei List Owner


msmall@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Cha robh bàs fir gun ghràs fir!

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