Thanksgiving Dinner

The centerpiece of contemporary Thanksgiving in the United States and Canada is a large meal, generally centered around a large roasted turkey. The majority of the dishes in the traditional American version of Thanksgiving dinner are made from foods native to the New World, as according to tradition the Pilgrims received these foods from the Native Americans. However, many of the classic traditions attributed to the first Thanksgiving are actually myths introduced later

Historical menus


Men eating a Thanksgiving dinner during World War I

According to what traditionally is known as "The First Thanksgiving," the 1621 feast between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag at Plymouth Colony contained turkey, waterfowl, venison, fish, lobster, clams, berries, fruit, pumpkin, and squash. William Bradford noted that, "besides waterfowl, there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many." Many of the foods that were included in that feast (except, notably, the seafood) have since gone on to become staples of the modern Thanksgiving dinner.

The use of the turkey in the USA for Thanksgiving precedes Lincoln's nationalization of the holiday in 1863. Alexander Hamilton proclaimed that no "Citizen of the United States should refrain from turkey on Thanksgiving Day," and many of the Founding Fathers (particularly Benjamin Franklin) had high regard for the wild turkey as an American icon, but turkey was uncommon as Thanksgiving fare until after 1800. By 1857, turkey had become part of the traditional dinner in New England.

A Thanksgiving Day dinner served to the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1935 included: pickles, green olives, celery, roast turkey, oyster stew, cranberry sauce, giblet gravy, dressing, creamed asparagus tips, snowflake potatoes, baked carrots, hot rolls, fruit salad, mince meat pie, fruit cake, candies, grapes, apples, French drip coffee, cigars and cigarettes.

Alternatives to turkey

Non-traditional foods other than turkey are sometimes served as the main dish for a Thanksgiving dinner. Goose and duck, foods which were traditional European centerpieces of Christmas dinners before being displaced, are now sometimes served in place of the Thanksgiving turkey. Sometimes, fowl native to the region where the meal is taking place is used; for example, an article in Texas Monthly magazine suggested quail as the main dish for a Texan Thanksgiving feast. John Madden, who appeared on television for the Thanksgiving Classic every year from 1981 to 2001, frequently advertised his fondness for the turducken, which is in fact three birds (turkey, duck and chicken) nested inside each other and cooked together; he has since disavowed the dish. In a few areas of the West Coast of the United States, Dungeness crab is common as an alternate main dish, as crab season starts in early November."Similarly, Thanksgiving falls within deer hunting season in the Northeastern United States, which encourages the use of venison as a centerpiece. Sometimes a variant recipe for cooking turkey is used; for example, a Chinese recipe for goose could be used on the similarly-sized American bird. Vegetarians or vegans may try tofurkey, a tofu-based dish with imitation turkey flavor. In Alaskan villages, whale meat is sometimes eaten.[1] Irish immigrants have been known to have prime rib of beef as their centerpiece as beef was once a rarity back in Ireland; in the past, families would save up money for this as a special sign of newfound prosperity and hope. In the United States, a new globalist approach to Thanksgiving has become popular due to the impact of massive immigration on the country. Some take the basic Thanksgiving ingredients, and reinvent them using flavors, techniques, and traditions from their own cuisines, while others celebrate the holiday with a large festive meal with or without turkey.

Given the working holiday it is also common for immigrant communities in North America to participate in the holiday by launching their own celebrations of the holiday. Thus, it is not uncommon to find Chinese and other large immigrant communities celebrating Thanksgiving in the same family spirit but with the food of the feast being of their own respective cultures instead.