The "First" Thanksgiving (I)

With Thanksgiving little more than a week away, I've had cooking on the brain. No wonder--it's the only national holiday entirely devoted to food (plus, well, giving thanks). Is there anything more wonderful? I decided to honor the holiday by investigating its historic roots.

(And, as you know, I can't leave well enough alone.)

The results were fascinating. There are so many myths built up around this holiday that when you strip it down to its historical truth, there isn't much that's recognizable. We might as well call it The Thanksgiving that Wasn't. This week I'll be examining some of the bigger myths, along with recipes I used to cook a historical Thanksgiving for me and Josh (brave man).


The Myth of the Pilgrims

The English colonists who settled on Massachusetts Bay in 1620, the ones who famously landed the Mayflower on Plymouth Rock, weren't Pilgrims. They didn't call themselves Pilgrims at all. Instead they thought of themselves in two separate groups: Separatists, the religious ones who just wanted to worship freely, and "Strangers," the secular ones who wanted a fresh start in the New World. What's more, the Separatists wanted to be so separate from the English church that they refused to celebrate traditional holidays. So they began building Plymouth, their first village, on Christmas Day.

That First Winter in the New World was so awful that half of the original Mayflower passengers died. (There's an excellent portrayal of the harsh New World winters in Terrence Malick's The New World, which is about Virginia.) In the spring, the Native Wampanoag took pity on them and helped them plant corn. Squanto, a Native who'd been kidnapped and sold into slavery in Spain before making his way back to the New World, had learned English during his captivity and helped the colonists communicate with the Wampanoag. With the help of the local tribes, the colonists planted native crops like corn, squash, and pumpkins (called "pompions" back then), as well as English crops they'd brought with them.

Not surprisingly, most of the native crops fared much better than the English crops.

The colonists were actually intimately familiar with pumpkins; the vegetable had been introduced to Europe following the Columbian Exchange. They were sort of obsessed with pumpkins. They even wrote songs about how dependable pumpkins were. I am 100% serious. Stewed pumpkin was a staple in England, and the English just kept on cooking it in colonial New England.

Therefore, stewed pumpkin was definitely served at the 1621 harvest feast, and I replicated a traditional recipe for our own dinner. This version is sort of cheating because you use canned pumpkin rather than stewing a pumpkin over a fire all day, but you get the same effect. However, the strangest thing about this recipe is its liberal use of apple cider vinegar, which lends the pumpkin a sour sort of flavor. Josh and I were not at all sure about this. But you'll have to tell me what you think.

Stewed Pumpkin
(adapted from Giving Thanks: Thanksgiving Recipes and History, from Pilgrims to Pumpkin Pie)

2 cups canned pumpkin
2 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp salt

Heat all ingredients in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring to incorporate. Cook until the pumpkin is heated through, about 5-7 minutes.

Works Cited: Giving Thanks: Thanksgiving Recipes and History, from Pilgrims to Pumpkin Pie by Kathleen Curtin, Sandra L. Oliver, and Plimoth Plantation. Thanksgiving: The Biography of an American Holiday by James W. Baker.

Frontier House (II)

A few days ago I gave an overview of PBS' miniseries Frontier House, where three modern families live for five months on Montana homesteads as though it were 1883. Here are just a few things that were fascinating about the series:

• the historically accurate division of labor. The men build the houses, sheds, and fences, while the women cook, do never-ending laundry, and try to sew (there's just never any time). The kids care for the animals, do the milking, haul water, and help with the harvest. As you might expect, the women get the raw end of the deal. As soon as they're finished making breakfast, it's time to start making lunch for all those hungry workers who will be expecting a hot meal. And that's without considering that they have to wash all their families' clothes by hand.


• the importance of family size. The families with four kids split up their work much as I described above. The newly-married couple with no kids has a much more flexible division of work: the woman helps her husband build fences and do a lot of outdoor labor, in addition to cooking and laundering. Now that I think of it, that's just more work for the woman.


• the families' reactions to the hardships of homesteading. There's a lot of crying. Mostly out of frustration (like when a mom finds out she can't wear makeup for their family portrait, or when the dogs eat the breakfast that same mom spent hours cooking). And while some of the people try to work together, one family resists cooperation, which just leads to tension and conflict. This is probably the most "reality-show" part of the series.


• the families' reactions to poverty. They're not given a lot of food to start with, since most homesteaders only had what they could bring with them. One family budgets their goods, while another family burns through their food and then spends all their money at the general store. To make more money, the father of that family builds his own still. And makes moonshine.


• health concerns. One woman gets tendinitis in her arm because she's doing so much housework. One man, who's lost a good deal of weight, worries that he's starving. The doctor who examines him reports that he's actually much healthier than he was at the start of the show, he's at a healthy weight, and his only problem is dehydration. 


• the emotional impact of killing animals. Periodically they take stock of the hens and realize they have to kill the ones that aren't laying. If they can't harvest eggs, at least they can benefit from the meat. But one of the kids grows emotionally attached to every animal, and protests mightily when it's time to chop off the head of his favorite chicken. "Then you shouldn't have named her!" his mom says. Ah, the reality of knowing where your food comes from.


• the adjustment back to modern life. One couple reflects that they don't know what to do with their ocean-front mansion (it's too darn big!). Another couple separates to work out the tensions that emerged during their homesteading experience. One girl discovers her affinity with animals and carries that back to her life in Tennessee. Two other girls reflect that they're "bored" with modern life.

Josh commented that the final episode (showing the adjustment to modern life) was designed with a very specific message in mind: that modern life isolates family members from each other and makes it hard for people to be self-reliant. The producers of the show definitely emphasized this aspect. But to some extent, it's an accurate message. How self-reliant are we really? Do we really need these big houses? Do we use computers and television to mediate our interactions with family and friends?

This show has given me a lot to consider. Now I want to hear from you: are there weaknesses in our modern lives? If so, what do you think they are? How could we change for the better?

Previously:

Frontier House

Frontier House

It's 1883. You've arrived in a desolate part of Montana with your family and all your worldly belongings, ready to create a homestead and start your new life as a farmer. You have only the woods and the tools you brought with you to build your house. You have only the animals you brought with you to raise and work the farm. There are only two other families nearby.

Oh, and don't forget to describe your experience for the cameras. They're filming everything.

So begins the fascinating PBS miniseries Frontier House (2001), where three modern American families volunteer to be transported back in time to live on Montana homesteads for five months. I'd watched one of these shows before--1900 House, where a British family lives in a Victorian brownstone for three months--and loved it. So on a suggestion by Josh's dad, I checked out Frontier House from the library.

Normally I hate reality shows, but this intersection of history and modernity hits all the right notes. Most of the participants in Frontier House have no idea what they're in for. The family members who signed them up expected life in Montana to be like Little House on the Prairie (the TV series): running around the prairie, putting up their hair in braids, teaching their kids important life lessons. Most of them are unpleasantly surprised to discover that life is much more like the book version of Little House. Complete with endless days of baked beans, freak snowstorms, and hard physical labor.

The families have to leave behind everything from the 21st century, including makeup, toilet paper, and modern methods of contraception. (The adults have a funny conversation about this over cold pints of beer, after they learn that the most widely-used method of contraception on the prairie was a condom made of pig intestine.) Historical experts teach the families how to cook on a wood-fired range, how to chop wood and construct houses, and how to ride horses. Then the families are outfitted in 1880s clothing (corsets and bustles for the ladies, jackets and string ties for the men) and transported to their new homes via horse and wagon. After that, it's only the families, the film crew, and the great outdoors.

I could go on and on about this show. It gave me a lot to think about, especially since I nurture a secret dream to be able to go back in time to live in the 19th century. Rationally I know that so much about 19th-century life would be difficult and frustrating, especially for women. But as you've probably guessed by now, part of me wants to do that anyway. So watching Frontier House was a great way to live that dream vicariously through three unsuspecting families.

Check back on Monday to find out what I loved about this series!