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Apart from food, the biggest Thanksgiving traditions are football and parades. In ancient harvest festivals, people usually celebrated with games and sports, so you could argue the football tradition has very deep roots. The traditional American Thanksgiving football game was usually between the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers, but as football has become more popular, there are now more games on Thanksgiving day.

The tradition of Thanksgiving parades goes back to the early 20th century, when people began to associate Thanksgiving with the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. In order to attract customers, stores like Macy's sponsored elaborate parades like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Some people choose to express their gratitude by giving back to the community. Volunteer activities, such as helping out at a soup kitchen or at a shelter, are popular ways to spend Thanksgiving Day.

Since 1947, the National Turkey Federation has gifted a live Thanksgiving turkey to the White House, along with two butchered turkeys [source: Raloff]. It's not known exactly when United States presidents began pardoning the White House Thanksgiving turkey, but the tradition is thought to be connected to Abraham Lincoln sparing a turkey named "Jack" from becoming the main dish in a holiday meal. Today, the Annual Turkey Ceremony takes place in advance of Thanksgiving, and the public has the opportunity to name the spared turkey, who lives its remaining days at the Kidwell Farm, a petting zoo in Virginia.

Finally, because Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday of November and thus falls on a different date each year, the president of the United States issues a yearly proclamation to establish the date of the celebration. In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln began the tradition, and every president since has issued a Thanksgiving Day proclamation.

For more information on Thanksgiving and other related articles, visit the next page.

Related HowStuffWorks Articles

More Great Links

Sources

Bergland, Renee. "The Surprising History of Thanksgiving." Simmons College.http://www.simmons.edu/about/news/spotlight/448.shtml.

Meeks, N. Brock. "Since Plymouth, Thanksgiving Day has seen its share of controversy." Nov. 23, 2005. MSNBC. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6560439/.

Nelte, Karen. "History of the Modern Thanksgiving." Aug. 9, 2001. Nativeweb.org.http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/thanksgiving_nelte.html.

Raloff, Janet. "Food for Thought: Talking Turkey (with recipe)." Nov. 29, 2003. Science News Online. http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20031129/food.asp

United States Census Bureau. Nov. 23, 2006. http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/007643.html

United States Department of State. "Celebrate! Holidays in the U.S." http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/symbols/celebrat.pdf

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Apart from food, the biggest Thanksgiving traditions are football and parades. In an­cient harvest festivals, people usually celebrated with games and sports, so you could argue the football tradition has very deep roots. The traditional American Thanksgiving football game was usually between the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers, but as football has become more popular, there are now more games on Thanksgiving day.

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Everyone knows the general history of Thanksgiving dinner: the Wampanoag tribe of Native Americans helped the pilgrims at Plymouth survive their first year in the New World, and they all celebrated together in the Autumn of 1621 with a holiday feast.

But do you know the history of the Thanksgiving dishes themselves? Why do we eat sweet potatoes and not French fries? Pumpkin pie instead of strawberry shortcake? Cranberry sauce instead of cherry marmalade?

Each delicious member of the traditional Thanksgiving dinner has arrived for a reason, and when you give thanks this year for the many blessings in your life, don't forget to allow some gratitude that these elements of cuisine have come together to make one perfect holiday meal. The history of the Thanksgiving meal is a very American story, one that is filled with adventure, new discoveries and - of course - smart marketing.

TURKEY Native to the New World, wild turkeys were a staple of the local diet when the pilgrims arrived in 1620, and this tasty poultry was most definitely present on the table at the first Thanksgiving. That same century the birds were taken to Europe where they were confused with the guinea fowl, which had arrived on the continent by way of the country of Turkey, hence the name. Interestingly, Native Americans called this bird "peru."

DRESSING/STUFFING Stuffing has been eaten since at least the time of the Romans, and probably before. In Europe during the Middle Ages, stuffing was known as "farce," from the French word farcir, which means "to stuff." The word "stuffing" first appeared in print in 1538 and held fast until the 1880s, when the Victorians decided that they didn't so much like that word and changed it to "dressing." Today "stuffing" is usually found inside the bird while "dressing" refers to a separate pan of the bread, vegetable and spice mixture. Recipes vary regionally; cornbread dressing is popular in the South, those with an Italian background probably add sausage to their recipe, while German-Americans prefer to mix in dried fruit, potatoes or apples.

CRANBERRY SAUCE The first English settlers to the new world called this bright berry a "craneberry," due to its flowers that resemble the head of a crane. Native Americans already knew about the berry's health-promoting properties and often mixed it with pemmican, a dried meat mix, to preserve it for eating during the long New England winters. Cranberry sauce gained in popularity after General Ulysses S. Grant ordered it served to his troops during the siege of Petersburg, Virginia during the Civil War, and in 1912 it became available commercially under the name "Ocean Spray." If you listen carefully at the end of "Strawberry Fields Forever," you can hear John Lennon repeating the phrase, "cranberry sauce."

GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE Topped with crunchy fried onions, this side dish was invented by Campbell's test kitchen in order to promote their soups in 1955, when smothering vegetables in a rich, creamy sauce was a popular trend.

Sweet Potatoes Columbus brought this orange root vegetable to the New World from the Caribbean island of St. Thomas, and Virginia saw the first stateside cultivation in 1648 (the white potato was not introduced for another hundred years). The addition of a buttery marshmallow topping dates back to the 1920s and 30s, when marshmallows - previously an expensive, handmade treat - became widely available commercially. Please note: sweet potatoes are not yams.

GREEN JELL-O SALAD Gelatin was invented in the late 1800s by Charles Briggs Knox, who hated to see his wife work so hard boiling calves' feet to make aspic for gelatin dishes. After his death she went on to become one of the most successful businesswomen in New York. Congealed salads were the height of food fashion in the 1930s, and were called "salads" due to the bits of fruits and nuts inside the jiggley stuff, which gave it a salad-like appearance. Inexpensive and easy to make, Jell-O salads have since become a staple of potluck dinners across the nation.

Pumpkin PIE The pilgrims probably didn't have pumpkin pie per se at the first Thanksgiving because they didn't have an oven to bake the crust in. This squash, which dates back 9,000 years to Mexico, had been cultivated by the Native Americans for centuries, roasted or boiled for survival. The pilgrims might have made stewed pumpkin by filling the shell with a mixture of orange flesh, milk, honey and spices and baking it in ashes, but the first pumpkin pie did not appear until 1670.

PECAN PIE The pecan tree grew in Texas and New Mexico long before any humans arrived, as is evident from the fossil record. Some Native American tribes relied on its meat as a major food resource for almost a third of the year, and they introduced this hard-shelled nut to the French settlers of New Orleans, who quickly made it into "New Orleans Pie." A simple dessert made with nuts, corn syrup, eggs and vanilla, the pecan pie was popularized by the manufacturers of Karo corn syrup earlier this century and remains a holiday dessert staple.

Tags: first thanksgiving, history of thanksgiving, thanks giving day, thanksgiving, thanksgiving day, thanksgiving dinner, thanksgiving history, thanksgiving meal, turkey, what is thanksgiving

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History of Our Thanksgiving Meal - Organic Authority

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Everyone knows the general history of Thanksgiving dinner: the Wampanoag tribe of Native Americans helped the pilgrims at Plymouth survive their first year in the New World, and they all celebrated together in the Autumn of 1621 with a holiday feast. But do you know the history of the Thanksgiving dishes themselves?

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The history of the Thanksgiving celebration

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The history of the Thanksgiving celebration

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Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday in the United States, and Thanksgiving 2018 occurs on Thursday, November 22. In 1621, the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast that is acknowledged today as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies. For more than two centuries, days of thanksgiving were celebrated by individual colonies and states. It wasn't until 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November.

Thanksgiving at Plymouth

In September 1620, a small ship called the Mayflower left Plymouth, England, carrying 102 passengers-an assortment of religious separatists seeking a new home where they could freely practice their faith and other individuals lured by the promise of prosperity and land ownership in the New World. After a treacherous and uncomfortable crossing that lasted 66 days, they dropped anchor near the tip of Cape Cod, far north of their intended destination at the mouth of the Hudson River. One month later, the Mayflower crossed Massachusetts Bay, where the Pilgrims, as they are now commonly known, began the work of establishing a village at Plymouth.

Did you know? Lobster, seal and swans were on the Pilgrims' menu.

Throughout that first brutal winter, most of the colonists remained on board the ship, where they suffered from exposure, scurvy and outbreaks of contagious disease. Only half of the Mayflower's original passengers and crew lived to see their first New England spring. In March, the remaining settlers moved ashore, where they received an astonishing visit from an Abenaki Indian who greeted them in English. Several days later, he returned with another Native American, Squanto, a member of the Pawtuxet tribe who had been kidnapped by an English sea captain and sold into slavery before escaping to London and returning to his homeland on an exploratory expedition. Squanto taught the Pilgrims, weakened by malnutrition and illness, how to cultivate corn, extract sap from maple trees, catch fish in the rivers and avoid poisonous plants. He also helped the settlers forge an alliance with the Wampanoag, a local tribe, which would endure for more than 50 years and tragically remains one of the sole examples of harmony between European colonists and Native Americans.

In November 1621, after the Pilgrims' first corn harvest proved successful, Governor William Bradford organized a celebratory feast and invited a group of the fledgling colony's Native American allies, including the Wampanoag chief Massasoit. Now remembered as American's "first Thanksgiving"-although the Pilgrims themselves may not have used the term at the time-the festival lasted for three days. While no record exists of the historic banquet's exact menu, the Pilgrim chronicler Edward Winslow wrote in his journal that Governor Bradford sent four men on a "fowling" mission in preparation for the event, and that the Wampanoag guests arrived bearing five deer. Historians have suggested that many of the dishes were likely prepared using traditional Native American spices and cooking methods. Because the Pilgrims had no oven and the Mayflower's sugar supply had dwindled by the fall of 1621, the meal did not feature pies, cakes or other desserts, which have become a hallmark of contemporary celebrations.

Check out the Thanksgiving by the Numbers infographic for more facts about how the first Thanksgiving compares to modern holiday traditions.

Thanksgiving Becomes an Official Holiday

Pilgrims held their second Thanksgiving celebration in 1623 to mark the end of a long drought that had threatened the year's harvest and prompted Governor Bradford to call for a religious fast. Days of fasting and thanksgiving on an annual or occasional basis became common practice in other New England settlements as well. During the American Revolution, the Continental Congress designated one or more days of thanksgiving a year, and in 1789 George Washington issued the first Thanksgiving proclamation by the national government of the United States; in it, he called upon Americans to express their gratitude for the happy conclusion to the country's war of independence and the successful ratification of the U.S. Constitution. His successors John Adams and James Madison also designated days of thanks during their presidencies.

In 1817, New York became the first of several states to officially adopt an annual Thanksgiving holiday; each celebrated it on a different day, however, and the American South remained largely unfamiliar with the tradition. In 1827, the noted magazine editor and prolific writer Sarah Josepha Hale-author, among countless other things, of the nursery rhyme "Mary Had a Little Lamb"-launched a campaign to establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday. For 36 years, she published numerous editorials and sent scores of letters to governors, senators, presidents and other politicians. Abraham Lincoln finally heeded her request in 1863, at the height of the Civil War, in a proclamation entreating all Americans to ask God to "commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife" and to "heal the wounds of the nation." He scheduled Thanksgiving for the final Thursday in November, and it was celebrated on that day every year until 1939, when Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the holiday up a week in an attempt to spur retail sales during the Great Depression. Roosevelt's plan, known derisively as Franksgiving, was met with passionate opposition, and in 1941 the president reluctantly signed a bill making Thanksgiving the fourth Thursday in November.

Thanksgiving Traditions

In many American households, the Thanksgiving celebration has lost much of its original religious significance; instead, it now centers on cooking and sharing a bountiful meal with family and friends. Turkey, a Thanksgiving staple so ubiquitous it has become all but synonymous with the holiday, may or may not have been on offer when the Pilgrims hosted the inaugural feast in 1621. Today, however, nearly 90 percent of Americans eat the bird-whether roasted, baked or deep-fried-on Thanksgiving, according to the National Turkey Federation. Other traditional foods include stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. Volunteering is a common Thanksgiving Day activity, and communities often hold food drives and host free dinners for the less fortunate.

Parades have also become an integral part of the holiday in cities and towns across the United States. Presented by Macy's department store since 1924, New York City's Thanksgiving Day parade is the largest and most famous, attracting some 2 to 3 million spectators along its 2.5-mile route and drawing an enormous television audience. It typically features marching bands, performers, elaborate floats conveying various celebrities and giant balloons shaped like cartoon characters.

Beginning in the mid-20th century and perhaps even earlier, the president of the United States has "pardoned" one or two Thanksgiving turkeys each year, sparing the birds from slaughter and sending them to a farm for retirement. A number of U.S. governors also perform the annual turkey pardoning ritual.

Thanksgiving Controversies

For some scholars, the jury is still out on whether the feast at Plymouth really constituted the first Thanksgiving in the United States. Indeed, historians have recorded other ceremonies of thanks among European settlers in North America that predate the Pilgrims' celebration. In 1565, for instance, the Spanish explorer Pedro Menéndez de Avilé invited members of the local Timucua tribe to a dinner in St. Augustine, Florida, after holding a mass to thank God for his crew's safe arrival. On December 4, 1619, when 38 British settlers reached a site known as Berkeley Hundred on the banks of Virginia's James River, they read a proclamation designating the date as "a day of thanksgiving to Almighty God."

Some Native Americans and others take issue with how the Thanksgiving story is presented to the American public, and especially to schoolchildren. In their view, the traditional narrative paints a deceptively sunny portrait of relations between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag people, masking the long and bloody history of conflict between Native Americans and European settlers that resulted in the deaths of millions. Since 1970, protesters have gathered on the day designated as Thanksgiving at the top of Cole's Hill, which overlooks Plymouth Rock, to commemorate a "National Day of Mourning." Similar events are held in other parts of the country.

Thanksgiving's Ancient Origins

Although the American concept of Thanksgiving developed in the colonies of New England, its roots can be traced back to the other side of the Atlantic. Both the Separatists who came over on the Mayflower and the Puritans who arrived soon after brought with them a tradition of providential holidays-days of fasting during difficult or pivotal moments and days of feasting and celebration to thank God in times of plenty.

As an annual celebration of the harvest and its bounty, moreover, Thanksgiving falls under a category of festivals that spans cultures, continents and millennia. In ancient times, the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans feasted and paid tribute to their gods after the fall harvest. Thanksgiving also bears a resemblance to the ancient Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot. Finally, historians have noted that Native Americans had a rich tradition of commemorating the fall harvest with feasting and merrymaking long before Europeans set foot on their shores.

PHOTO GALLERIES

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Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday in the United States, and Thanksgiving 2018 occurs on Thursday, November 22. In 1621, the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast that is acknowledged today as one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies.

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NEWSPAPER ARTICLE ABOUT THANKSGIVING 2016

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NEWSPAPER ARTICLE ABOUT THANKSGIVING 2016

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Then in 1846, author Sarah Josepha Hale waged a one-woman campaign for Thanksgiving to be recognised as a truly national holiday.

In the US the day had previously been celebrated only in New England and was largely unknown in the American South. All the other states scheduled their own Thanksgiving holidays at different times, some as early as October and others as late as January.

Hale's advocacy for the national holiday lasted 17 years and four presidencies before the letter she wrote to Lincoln was successful. In 1863, at the height of the Civil War, he supported legislation which established a national holiday of Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November.

Lincoln perhaps wanted the date to tie in with the anchoring of the Mayflower at Cape Cod, which occurred on November 21, 1620. Although we now use the Gregorian calendar. In 1621 the date would have been November 11 to the Pilgrims, who used the Julian calendar.

So Hale finally got her wish. She is perhaps now better known, though, for writing the nursery rhyme 'Mary Had a Little Lamb'.

In 1939, President Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving up a week to try and give a boost to retailers before Christmas during the Great Depression.

Several states followed FDR's lead but 16 states refused the holiday shift, leaving the country with rival Thanksgivings. FDR changed his mind after coming under pressure from Congress and in 1941, a resolution was passed returning the holiday to the fourth Thursday of November.

Atlantic City mayor Thomas D. Taggart later described the Thanksgiving holiday from 1939-1941 as "Franksgiving".

Thanksgiving food: turkey, pies and stuffing

There are several potential reasons Americans eat turkey on the big day: one claims that the pilgrim Edward Winslow wrote a letter about that now-famous meal in 1621 which mentioned a turkey hunt before the dinner.

Another theory says the choice of turkey was inspired by Queen Elizabeth I who was eating dinner when she heard that Spanish ships had sunk on their way to attack England. She was so thrilled with the news she ordered another goose be served. Some claim early US settlers roasted turkeys as they were inspired by her actions.

Others say that as wild turkeys are native to North America, they were a natural choice for early settlers.

When European settlers encountered turkeys for the first time in the early 1500s, they incorrectly identified the birds as a type of guineafowl. Since this group of birds were thought to come from Turkey, the North American bird was dubbed 'turkey fowl'.

This later became shortened to 'turkey' and entered the vernacular. The English navigator William Strickland, who introduced the turkey into England in 1550, was granted a coat of arms which included a "turkey-cock in his pride proper".

So what comprises the classic Thanksgiving dinner?

Turkey: and/or ham, goose and duck or turduken (a spatchcocked combo of three whole birds!)

Stuffing (also known as dressing): a mix of bread cubes, chopped celery, carrots, onions and sage stuffed inside the turkey for roasting. Chestnuts, chopped bacon or sausage, and raisins or apples are also sometimes included in the stuffing.

Pies: pumpkin pies are most common, but pecan, apple, sweet potato and mincemeat pies are also quite popular.

Candied yams: sweet potatoes baked in a sugar syrup is exactly the sweet contrast you need on your plate full of savoury dishes. Sounds questionable, tastes delicious. You can also top your sweet potatoes with marshmallow if you want to be really authentic.

Mashed potatoes: Not specific to Thanksgiving but you'll struggle to find a celebratory dinner without them.

Thanksgiving recipe inspiration

From pumpkin pie to mac and cheese, Americans go all out for Thanksgiving. Here are our favourite recipes:

Delicious sweet pastry combined with the popular autumn squash. Share America's love for pumpkin pie with this traditional, simple recipe.

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Thanksgiving 2021: pies, parades, presidential pardons and the history behind the day

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Then in 1846, author Sarah Josepha Hale waged a one-woman campaign for Thanksgiving to be recognised as a truly national holiday. In the US the day had previously been celebrated only in New England and was largely unknown in the American South.