Turkey and Thanksgiving Day Traditions
Thanksgiving Day is a holiday celebrated by the people of the United States every year on the fourth Thursday of November. Of course, something is interesting with the theme this time, namely "Turkey and the Thanksgiving Day Tradition".
It is known that the celebration dates back to a harvest feast in 1621 conducted by English colonists (known as Pilgrims) in Plymouth and the Wampanoag people.
Thanksgiving Day later became an official holiday when tensions between groups broke out in the mid-19th century.
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At the time, the editor of the popular magazine Godey's Lady's Book, Sarah Josepha Hale, campaigned for a national Thanksgiving Day to encourage unity.
On October 3, 1863, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving which was celebrated on Thursday, November 26.
Then in 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a proclamation designating the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day.
Thanksgiving Day Sides
Many families use Thanksgiving as an opportunity to get together, party, or take advantage of the moment to reflect on the positive things in life.
Thanksgiving also marks the start of the Christmas holiday season. Most people have a "big meal" together, with the main menu being turkey.
Reporting from the History page, turkey became a staple food that was everywhere during celebrations, so it became synonymous with the Thanksgiving holiday.
Also, read: National Taco Day.
This has become the most common tradition, as it is thought that colonial pilgrims used to eat turkey during the first Thanksgiving feast in 1621.
Today, nearly 90 percent of Americans present turkey dishes on Thanksgiving.
Other traditional foods of the Thanksgiving meal usually include bread, potatoes, cranberries, and pumpkin pie.
In addition, there are many American football (rugby) games shown on TV on Thanksgiving.
One tradition that is quite popular is Black Friday, which is done after Thanksgiving, or on the fourth Friday of September.
It is a tradition where many people go to stores to shop, taking advantage of offers and discounts in various stores.
Why is Thanksgiving synonymous with turkey?
As already mentioned, Thanksgiving Day celebrations in the United States feature traditional dishes of bread, potatoes, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and most importantly turkey.
However, how can turkey be the main dish in the celebration?
Quoted from the Britannica page, today's Thanksgiving menus began with an event commonly called "first Thanksgiving".
There is indeed evidence of food being shared between colonial pilgrims in Plymouth (now Massachusetts) and the Wampanoag people as late as 1621.
However, there is no past indication that turkey was served. For meat, the Wampanoag tribe brought deer, and pilgrims provided wild "poultry".
The "bird" could have been a turkey, which is native to the area, but historians estimate it could have been a duck or a goose.
By the turn of the 19th century, turkey had become a popular dish served on occasions such as religious celebrations and Thanksgiving.
However, turkey is not yet synonymous with Thanksgiving. It wasn't until this celebration became an official American holiday that a national mythology formed around it.
A collection of Pilgrim's 1841 writings referred to the banquet described by Edward Winslow, a colonial pilgrim in Plymouth, as the first Thanksgiving.
Although he did not specifically mention turkeys, his colleague William Bradford referred to the "great barn of wild turkeys" in Plymouth, in a journal printed in 1856.
Before long, the cultural connection between colonial pilgrims, turkeys, and Thanksgiving became an inseparable and integral part of the education of American schoolchildren. Hopefully this information about "Turkey and Thanksgiving Day Traditions" can be a reference for you.