I’m pretty sure you’re all aware of what you’re supposed to be eating for Thanksgiving, that holiday where white people celebrate being, uh... and the rest celebrate, uh... food... sure. Anyway, you all know what you’re supposed to be shoving in your face that day. But, did you know just exactly where Grandma’s cornbread stuffing originated from? Or, how about that mincemeat pie your aunt tries desperately to get correct every year, even though you keep having to tell her that what she is really doing is shoving ground beef into a pie crust, with apples on top (a minor translation issue between King’s English and American vocabulary).
Well, since I bet your answer to both of those examples was "no, Hannah, I do not know where these foods originated from," I’m going to give you some hard facts on the most popular foods eaten around the Thanksgiving table, TV tray, your lap, boob holster, or even standing around the stove. Enjoy.
It isn’t quite known when stuffing was actually first used. However, the first known written literature on stuffing as a food was found in the Roman cookbook, Apicius. In this cookbook, they go on to write several chapters on cooked meats such as lamb, fish, and flamingo. My guess is they were also the first to determine, "This bird will taste a lot better if I shove my hand up its ass with some vegetables and seasonings." I am forever curious who was the first to shove their hand up the flamingo’s ass.
Pie is an interesting thing. I was going to go into the origin of pumpkin pie or some other specific pie, but those all turned out to be pretty boring in terms of historical origin. But since you’re wondering, Nancy Whitehouse found pumpkins laying about when they arrived on the Mayflower to the new land, said to herself, "I’m going to bash this to pieces, boil it and see what happens" (just like Grandma used to.) Nancy then went over to Carol’s cottage, where Carol was busy making really dry, horrid, crusty breads that definitely didn’t have maggots in them, and asked Carol if she could make a crust for this orange mush she had boiling. Unfortunately, that idea didn’t pan out because Carol was a bitch, and instead, they ended up eating the pumpkin mush with honey and milk inside the hollowed-out pumpkin shell. Mmmmmmm.
So, Pie. The first pies were predominantly meat pies (hence mincemeat, not mince) and were pretty much crust with some bits of fowl in them. You ate them like a lollipop because the legs were generally kept in the crust to be used as handles while eating. (Just try Googling this for an image; I dare you. You’ll end up hungry for potpies and still not have a relevant photo of this.)
Apparently, Thomas Jefferson was enthralled with pasta dishes after visiting France or Italy. Several sources go back and forth; you don’t care. He brought himself back a pasta machine, shoved it in front of his cook lady, Carol, who said basically, "wtf is this?" and was forced to learn the ins and outs of a pasta machine while learning how to also make pasta. Carol, being the snotty wench that she was, was too lazy to manufacture long pasta noodles, so instead stuck with the small, curly things you see today. Ingenuity and laziness at its finest. True facts, just don’t quote me.
We can also thank Kraft for saying, "Hey bro, like, I guess the kids today are getting pretty fat, so like, let’s take out a couple of ingredients people can’t pronounce and replace them with saffron and some other plant that’s really just "plant derivative" and make us some orange cheese sauce. Just like the 17th-century cheese frauds. Good job, Kraft. Whatever, you know, it still tastes good. Two facts you can’t argue, American kids will always be fat, and Kraft’s mac & cheese sauce will always be good.
Alright, so turkey. I really don’t know why people like turkey so much. I think it’s a pretty bland bird. Dry, even when you cook or fry it right, and pretty much just forgettable. In fact, for most Thanksgivings, I don’t even eat turkey. I go straight for the good stuff—bourbon. So, anyway... turkey. Fun bird, the turkey. Fun, dumb, and full of meat to feed an entire family. It’s said that turkey was more likely than not, not what was actually eaten at the "first Thanksgiving" (which, by the way... that whole pilgrim thing was actually not the first Thanksgiving... fun fact, look it up—this article is about food). Turkeys became synonymous with Thanksgiving after farmers started getting tired of the number of turkeys around their streets. Turkeys around every corner. Like penguins being a nuisance in New Zealand. Or castles being an annoying roundabout in England. In the beginning, you know, after the whole Native American thing where they decided to leave on their terms, there were over 10 million turkeys in America.
Who the fuck’s job was it to count 10 million turkeys? How did they know? Did they count the number of turkeys per square mile and go from there? Much like the count of licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, the world may never know.
Either way, turkeys became the staple of Thanksgiving feasts due to over-population of the suckers, people getting tired of having to move them out of the way whenever there was a rainstorm (turkeys like to stare at rain clouds and drown themselves). Also, the fact that they were easily able to feed a large family (or even a normal-sized family, nowadays). This is why we don’t eat owls.
So, there you have it—a list of some of the most common food items eaten on Thanksgiving and where their origins started. Again, do not quote or try to source me. I’m right, and at the end of the night, you don’t care enough. Enjoy your bland turkey and eat all the orange "cheez sauce"-macaroni you can. Carol and Thomas Jefferson would appreciate it.
Hannah One Cup can be found foraging the ground for edible things like mushrooms, chicken legs, ice cream, and cheese. You might see her around the Midnite Mart grabbing a beer to go with her really dry turkey leftovers. She will show up to your Thanksgiving, if invited, so long as there is cheap bourbon and chicken (she will eat all the chicken skin).
