The Thanksgiving Table

Open the room · 3 min

Ask everyone: what dish was always on your family's Thanksgiving table? Who made it, and what happened the year it was missing?

Visit four tables · 20 min

1. Plymouth, 1621. Read about the 1621 harvest gathering. Edward Winslow wrote that Massasoit came with “some 90 men,” and that the guests stayed three days and killed five deer. Neither Winslow nor William Bradford called it a thanksgiving, and the Smithsonian's American Indian museum describes it as more about diplomacy than a feast. What were you taught about the first Thanksgiving, and where did you learn it?
2. Washington, 1863. Open Lincoln's proclamation and Sarah Josepha Hale's letter. Hale had written about a national Thanksgiving for decades. In her 1827 novel the pumpkin pie has “the most distinguished niche” on the table. Read her pumpkin pie below. Was there a dish at your table that always went in the same place, or that only one person could make?
3. Washington, 1941. Read how Thanksgiving got a fixed date. In 1939 Roosevelt moved it a week earlier, some states refused, and some kept both days, until Congress chose the fourth Thursday of November. Has your family ever moved a holiday for work, travel or the weather? How did it go?
4. The White House, 1989. Open the turkey pardon record. George H. W. Bush said the presented turkey had been “granted a Presidential pardon.” The Truman Library found no record of Truman ever pardoning one, despite the popular story. What is the biggest turkey, or the funniest kitchen mishap, you remember?

Close the circle · 7 min

Read the two pumpkin pies below side by side. What changed in sixty-one years? Ask each person to bring one holiday recipe that was written down, and what a stranger would need to know to make it the way their family did.

Two pumpkin pies, word for word

Each recipe is quoted exactly from its original source and is in the public domain. The “Today” notes are Prometheus’ own.

Pompkin · Amelia Simmons, 1796

No. 2. One quart of milk, 1 pint pompkin, 4 eggs, molasses, allspice and ginger in a crust, bake 1 hour.

American Cookery (Hartford, 1796), p. 28. Today: about ½ cup molasses and 1 teaspoon each of allspice and ginger; two 9-inch crusts; 375°F for 50 to 60 minutes.

Pumpkin Pie · Sarah Josepha Hale, 1857

Stew the pumpkin dry, and make it like squash pie, only season rather higher. In the country, where this real Yankee pie is prepared in perfection, ginger is almost always used with other spices. There, too, part cream, instead of milk, is mixed with the pumpkin, which gives it a richer flavor.

Mrs. Hale's Receipts for the Million (Philadelphia, 1857), receipt 1215, p. 334. Today: about 2 cups of cooked, well-drained pumpkin, 2 eggs, ¾ cup sugar or molasses, 1 cup of half milk and half cream, and 1 teaspoon each of ginger and cinnamon; one 9-inch crust; 375°F for 50 to 60 minutes.

Further reading · Plimoth Patuxet: Winslow's 1621 account · Smithsonian NMAI: A Closer Look at the Thanksgiving Tale · National Archives: Lincoln's 1863 proclamation · National Archives: Thanksgiving as a federal holiday · Truman Library: Did Truman pardon a turkey?

ExploreChronicle.com/shop/thanksgiving-card.html · You may print and share this session card for your group. The two recipes are in the public domain; the notes and questions are Prometheus’ own. Linked sources keep their own terms.