Gobble Gobble Gobble

 Two Sides of Thanksgiving                                       Thanksgiving Day Music  

The grocery stores have been brimming with fresh frozen turkeys awaiting their final presentation at the Thanksgiving table. Whether baked, roasted, broiled, boiled or fried, Mr. Tom more than likely will take center stage where he will not be the one gobbling! Surrounding the main attraction one might find homemade cranberry sauce, dressing or stuffing, giblet gravy, sweet potato souffle, collard greens, field peas, green bean and/or squash casserole, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, and of course, sizzlin' fried cornbread...in other words, the best of the best Thanksgiving stars of the show! Of course, this only touches the main course...don't forget the appetizers and oh, my! those luscious desserts! Are you ready to gobble?

Tidbit of Turkey Trivia...

If it had been left up to Benjamin Franklin, the Turkey, not the Bald Eagle would have been designated as our national bird. That would include all the "gobbles," "clucks," "putts," "purrs," "yelps," "cutts," "whines," "cackles," and "kee-kees" that go along with it! Wonder what impact that would have had on the traditional Thanksgiving dinner...Um-m-m?

The First Thanksgiving...

Wild Turkey in Ottawa, Michigan

During the first Thanksgiving, Pilgrim's cooking methods and menus were crude as compared to what most of us have experienced in our lifetime. There were no electric or gas ovens. In fact, no electricity period. Colonial utensils and hardware consisted of frying pans, kettles, iron pots, wooden spoons, and a mortar and pestle. 

On the menu one would more than likely NOT find turkey to be the main meat that filled the Pilgrim's bellies. Nor would fancy dressing or giblet gravy grace the table and any signs of sweet potatoes or pumpkin pie nowhere would be found!

A sneak peak into a Pilgrim kitchen might disclose the following...

Each house had a prominent fire pit and chimney, where the cooking was normally done by the women and girls. Several "recipe books" from the period exist, and provide some interesting insights into cooking at the time. Perhaps the most famous of these is Gervase Markham's The English Housewife, first published in 1615. A recipe for cooking a young turkey or chicken reads: 

If you will boil chickens, young turkeys, peahens, or any house fowl daintily, you shall, after you have trimmed them, drawn them, trussed them, and washed them, fill their bellies as full of parsley as they can hold; then boil them with salt and water only till they be enough: then take a dish and put into it verjuice [the juice of sour crab-apples] and butter, and salt, and when the butter is melted, take the parsley out of the chicken's bellies, and mince it very small, and put it to the verjuice and butter, and stir it well together; then lay in the chickens, and trim the dish with sippets [fried or toasted slices of bread], and so serve it forth. [Source: MayflowerHistory.com]

Modern Day Preparation for Traditional Tom Turkey...

Cooking in a kitchen during colonial times...

 

...as compared to Julia Child in the kitchen!

 

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