Thanksgiving—Keeping It Real

I want to have an authentic Thanksgiving.

I've realized I don't know what that means.

As anyone from anywhere will tell you, our version of their food is not their version of their food. After you recover from that burst of eloquence, try to recall the last time you were dining out with a person from Italy or Korea or Gambia, and he said, "This is exactly like my mother used to make." Cooking is like a game of telephone that spans oceans and decades. The further you get from the point of origin, the less "authentic" your meal. According to the conventional wisdom, if you want REAL Pad Thai, you'd better break out your passport,

This is the time of year when we Americans can proudly toss all that wisdom out the window and into the nearest three-foot snowbank. It's Thanksgiving, and you can't spell Thanksgiving without some of the letters in "America." This November, WE say what's authentic. (I resist the temptation to make a topical election joke.)

This got me thinking about what makes a Thanksgiving dish "authentically" Thanksgivingesque. Is authenticity a binary trait? (Yes, to the extent that Doritos are most certainly not legit Thanksgiving fare.) Or is authenticity better conceived as a scale, given the intervening centuries since the inception of 1) the "original Thanksgiving" and 2) the inaugural national holiday version 240 years later?

Moreover, don't we need to decide what makes a dish "Thanksgivingesque"? Is it adherence to a prescribed bill of fare, or merely adherence to the holiday's amorphous "spirit?" Why can't I commit to simply typing a statement?

Let's look at our dishes and begin the inquisishes.

Turkey:

This is obviously the marquee Thanksgiving dish. Why would people have traditionally eaten turkey, as opposed to the other meat options of the period? Well, we don't drink turkey milk. We don't eat turkey eggs. Turkeys are especially amenable to being livestock, and they're hardy enough to withstand Plymouth winters in the age before HVAC. Eating turkey is also an ancient British practice, and the tradition traveled with the colonists.

But!

Did they eat turkey at the original dinner?

It's unclear. Pilgrim Edward Winslow wrote that the governor sent some men to catch fowl, and they returned with...four deer. So venison, which I've yet to see at a Thanksgiving table in my lifetime, is authentic from a historical standpoint. Turkey...is a maybe. But it was, according to scholars, almost certainly seasoned with Native American spices. If it was there.

Historical authenticity: ?
Spirit of Thanksgiving Authenticity (SOTA): 10

Apple/pumpkin/cherry pies:

Imagine that you crossed the ocean with about two high school classrooms worth of people. You landed, but the land was so unforgiving and cold and brutal that you decided it would be better to stay on the boat. About half of you died. Come spring, you had a lot to be thankful for, but no sugar, no ovens, and probably a touch of scurvy. And definitely no pies.

Then why pies at Thanksgiving? Because pies are delicious.

Pies are also indulgent. And indulgence has become a central part of Thanksgiving. The austerity and despair that preceded the "first Thanksgiving" nearly demanded an indulgence in their wake.

When Abe Lincoln decreed that Thanksgiving was officially a national holiday--during the Civil War--one can imagine the catharsis and jubilation that must have accompanied a presidential mandate to party in the midst of a nightmare. It's also easy to see Lincoln, whose primary directive was always that of preserving the Union, trying to engender national solidarity and familial cohesion with such a proclamation. (By then, turkey was, de facto, the main course, and pies were plentiful.)

What we see as simple indulgence can be historically re-framed as a reaction to the original banqueteers having survived terrible tribulation. I'm giving the big, bland turkey and the pie both credit for always creating an atmosphere of plenty wherever they're served.

HA: 0/10
SOTA: 10

Women:

Personally, I don't feel my Thanksgiving is complete without the presence of a few ladies. These "ladies" are usually members of my immediate family. Such was not always the case. Food historian Andrew Beahrs, author of Twain's Feast: Searching for America's Lost Foods in the Footsteps of Samuel Clemens, explains that the original Thanksgiving feast was as much a military alliance with the native Wampanoag people as a celebratory dinner. It's likely that the women cooked the bulk of the food that the men hunted, but firsthand accounts of the feast mention only men in attendance. Still, I like women, and I think it's more than arguable that there should be some at Thanksgiving. Also, there would be no human race without them. So: 

HA: 0/10
SOTA: 10

Cranberry Sauce: 

The Wampanoag people ate the berries raw, but there was certainly no option for a sweet sauce at the original dinner. That would have required sugar, which was not available, or maple syrup, which wouldn't become widely available in the Americas for another sixty years. Still, cranberries get special treatment on Thanksgiving these days, even from people who generally steer clear of their bitterness. So:

HA: 0/10
SOTA: 6/10

Green Bean Casserole: 

The 1950s: America was burying the terror of WW2 with shovel loads of patriotism and optimism. Hairstyles reached a historical pinnacle of ornate design. A middle class lifestyle marked the end of wartime austerity and an increased interest in honing the domestic arts. It was a perfect storm for the advent of the "recipe card." 

While recipe cards seem like a quaint relic in the Internet age (FFL clings to tradition!), there was a time when they were a viable low-priced alternative to a whole cookbook. Certain parties with a vested interest realized they could move product by creating recipes that contained the products they were trying to sell. 

21 Years after The Campbell's Soup Company devised the Cream of Mushroom soup—which had already spent two decades as a casserole binder—a Campbell's employee named Dorcas Reilly devised the GBC. It has enjoyed a divisive reputation since. And "divisive" is not very Thanksgiving. And neither are casserole-promoting corporate propaganda cards. So:

HA: 0/10
SOTA: 2/10 

Authenticity is a hard master. I'm not sure I'm ready to eat fresh venison with exclusively men on Thanksgiving. I suppose I'll just concede to have a "normal" Thanksgiving, full of anachronisms and good intentions, like everyone else. Whatever we eat, I'm sure they'll be plenty. And I won't forget why "plenty" was so important to those sharing that first feast.