Historic Cooking: Thanksgiving Pudding from 1925.

Image from http.clipart.edigg.com

Hello again; here we are near the end of a year that has been absolutely abnormal!  Things have changed even more for me; I was laid off from my job at the school in mid-August, due to increased costs related to the Covid-19 pandemic, and have been unemployed since then.  As I have found whenever I need to look for a job, I am overqualified for all of the minimum-wage or entry-level jobs that people are hiring for (and there are fewer of those jobs available because of all the businesses that have closed), and under-qualified for everything else!  I may need to use this time to go to grad school and get either a Master's or a teaching credential, or both, but I have no idea how I will pay for it while unemployed! I have no illusions of anything improving under the new presidency, since my situation remained the same under all the previous ones. 

One good thing that has come out of this excess of spare time, is that I have immersed myself in historical research, as well as attending as many history-related webinars and online lectures as I can, and it has resulted in some new things (none of which will earn me any kind of income, but oh well).  I have continued with the YouTube channel that I started in July and August, and it has been really interesting, although I still hate editing the videos!  I have made some interesting connections with other historians in the U.S., and it has inspired me to keep going with my own research and costume and cooking projects.  I have a whole list of historic recipes that I would like to make into videos for the YouTube channel, and I am currently translating my beginning hand-sewing class -- which I taught to elementary school students a few years ago -- into a series of videos, too.  But the weather has grown cool, and all I want to do right now is bake, and drink tea!

Holiday catch-up.

Thanksgiving Day--The Dinner
_Harper's Weekly_, November 1858

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!  I hope you had a wonderful day, whether you spent it with family, or had a "Friendsgiving" with good friends instead of relatives!  I'm still adjusting to the new living situation and job, and unfortunately, one of the things that comes with working with children, is getting sick!  Everything my kids get, I get.  I'm currently in the middle of the second bug that I've caught since the beginning of the school year; the earlier sickness started out as a cold and turned into a tonsil infection which kept me away from work for over a week!  This one seems more like a bad cold, and I'm hoping it won't turn into anything worse (fingers crossed!) but it's hung around all week and really put a damper on my holiday baking!  Time for lots of tea and hot/sour soup ...

Happy Thanksgiving!

image from Hubpages.

The baking marathon is complete.  There will be 27 people at dinner today.  Hope your holiday is full of fun and family and you remember all that you have to be thankful for! 

Thanksgiving preparations, ca. 1915

image from Grandma's Graphics

"How to Select Poultry.

In selecting poultry full-grown fowls have the best flavor, provided they are young.  The age may be determined by turning the wing backward--if it yields, it is tender.  The same is true if the skin on the leg is readily broken.  Older poultry makes the best soup.  The intestines should be removed at once, but frequently in shipping they are left in and, hence, when removed, the fowl needs washing in several waters.  The next to the last water should contain a half teaspoonful of baking soda, which sweetens and renders all more wholesome.  The giblets are the gizzard, heart, liver and neck."-- from The Bride's Cook Book, ca. 1915.

Thanksgiving Day.

Image: http://clipart.edigg.com 

"THANKSGIVING DAY.—When shall it be? The last Thursday in November falls on the 29th.  We petition each and all the State governors to appoint that day for our national rejoicing.  Then all the land will be glad together and union among the people would be a sure pledge of heart-thankfulness to God, who has given to us, as a nation, such wonderful prosperity, such universal blessings.
The readers and friends of the “Lady’s Book,” that is, a large majority of the people of these United States, agree in our petition.  Let us have a national day of Thanksgiving on Thursday, the 29th of November."  Godey's Lady's Book, October 1855.

Take time out this week with a tea party!

Photo: Nikolay Dimitrov. www.e-Cobo.com

Most of us across the United States are gearing up for Thanksgiving in the next week.  A quintessentially American holiday, with a profoundly religious background, the Thanksgiving feast, shared with as many friends and relatives as possible, can be a very stressful project.  It's easy to get hung up on the details and forget the purpose of the holiday: to set aside the difficulties and celebrate the blessings of family, friends, food and good deeds for an entire day.  Celebrate those who have provided for you and helped you to become the person that you are today.  Keep yourself in an attitude of gratefulness and appreciation by delegating some work to those who will share the meal with you, and put your feet up once in a while with a cup of tea! 

You can "taste-test" some of the treats for the big day by making them ahead of time and enjoying them before the frenzy of preparation.  A Thanksgiving High Tea is also the perfect way to use up leftovers after the holiday!  Here are some recipes you might want to add to your tea table; they would also make great additions to a special breakfast on Thanksgiving day.

Cranberry Orange scones
Butterscotch-Ginger scones
Cream scones
Pumpkin butter
Apple butter
Mock clotted cream
Spiced-Tea Cranberry Sauce

Mushroom Croustades
Pumpkin Fritters
Maple Shortbread

Interesting links:
“Thanksgiving tea ideas”
“Thanksgiving meal tea and food pairings”
“Hostess a Thanksgiving Tea Party” by Sheila Kosmicki
“A Thanksgiving Tea Party, Relax and Enjoy!”

Emily Dickinson Thanksgiving poem

In a previous post, we read how Sarah J. Hale, the editor of the now-unpublished Godey's Lady's Book, encouraged all Americans to celebrate Thanksgiving every year, and to honor the holiday with literary works. Several Americans did so, including a few famous poets who are still known today. One poem that I always forget to associate with Thanksgiving is the one by Lydia Maria Child known as "Over the River and Through the Woods," although its official title is "A New England Child's Thanksgiving Day," or perhaps just "Thanksgiving Day." As in, "Over the river and through the wood/to Grandmother's house we go;/The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh/through the white and drifted snow."

A more famous poet after her death than she ever was during her life, Emily Dickinson, whom the South Bay Ladies' Tea Guild remembered with a tea and poetry reading in her honor this past May, also left us with a Thanksgiving poem:

One Day is there of the Series
One Day is there of the Series
Termed Thanksgiving Day.
Celebrated part at Table
Part in Memory.
Neither Patriarch nor Pussy
I dissect the Play
Seems it to my Hooded thinking
Reflex Holiday.
Had there been no sharp Subtraction
From the early Sum–
Not an Acre or a Caption
Where was once a Room–
Not a Mention, whose small Pebble
Wrinkled any Sea,
Unto Such, were such Assembly
‘Twere Thanksgiving Day.
-- by Emily Dickinson

I find her work interesting, even if I don't always know quite what she's talking about!

On another note, regarding the mincemeat cookie recipe I posted a little while ago, you may need to read the ingredient listing on your mincemeat if you plan to make this recipe and have dietary issues. For those who don't know, mincemeat is a spicy, sweet, tangy mixture of dried fruits, citrus peel, sugar, vinegar, spices and (traditionally), alcohol and small bits of cooked meat. It is most popularly used to make pies and tarts. Some brands of store-bought mincemeat contain actual meat, and others don't; also, some mincemeat contains alcohol (rum or brandy) and some doesn't. If this is an issue for you, it may be safer to look up a recipe for mincemeat that fits your dietary requirements (or can be adjusted to do so) and make your own. The presence of meat or alcohol is not a necessary part of mincemeat, although it is traditional.

Godey's Lady's Book Thanksgiving article (part 2)

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"God has given to man authority, to woman influence; she inspires and persuades, he convinces and compels. For the last twelve years, the editress of the Lady’s Book has been endeavoring to bring about this agreement in popular feeling. We have used our influence, always, we trust, in a womanly way, and now we would render deep gratitude to God who has blessed our humble prayers and efforts, and express thus publicly our thanks to those generous men who have encouraged and accomplished our plans. We now leave the perpetuation of this good work, by the enactment of a statute in each State, to the good and patriotic men everywhere to be found, who love the Constitution and the Union.

Everything that contributes to bind us in one vast empire together, to quicken the sympathy that makes us feel from the icy North to the sunny South that we are one family, each a member of a great and free Nation, not merely the unit of a remote locality, is worthy of being cherished. We have sought to reawaken and increase this sympathy, believing that the fine filaments of the affections are stronger than laws to keep the Union of our States sacred in the hearts of our people.

Is it not fitting that from the heart of the Keystone State, this city of Independence Hall, the impulse of the new National Holiday should go forth? "A threefold cord is not quickly broken." This American festival adds the third strand to the cord that binds American hearts in nationality. The twenty-second of February, the Fourth of July, the last Thursday in November – these three DAYS observed, will make and keep us American citizens. Well did that patriot divine, Rev. Charles Wadsworth, exclaim, in his last Thanksgiving sermon – "Thanks be unto God for this American Pentecost! Never were the bonds of our beloved brotherhood so revealed in their strength! Never before did so many sister States keep lovingly together this feast of harvest. It is the gathering of the one great household with offerings of praise to the one common temple – the central Salem of peace – the God of love."

We believe our Thanksgiving Day, if fixed and perpetuated, will be a great and sanctifying promoter of this national spirit. Our whole people will then look forward to it – make preparations to honor and enjoy it. Literature will take her part and send her tribute of gratitude. We have received and read a number of excellent articles lately, and, what gave us particular pleasure, "A Thanksgiving Story," ... setting forth the sterling virtues and the happiness derived from family reunions, and the cultivation of fireside enjoyments. Let Thanksgiving, our American Holiday, give us American books – song, story, and sermon – written expressly to awaken in American hearts the love of home and country, of thankfulness to God, and peace between brethren. We do earnestly hope and pray that the last Thursday in November may be established as the American Thanksgiving Day. Then, on that Day, our citizens, whether in their own pleasant homes, or in the distant regions of Oriental despotism, would observe it – on board every ship where our flag floats there would be a day of gladness – wherever our missionaries preach the Gospel of "good-will to men," the day would exemplify the joy of Christians; and in our Great Republic, from the St. John’s to the Rio Grande, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, all our people, as one Brotherhood, will rejoice together, and give thanks to God for our National, State, and Family blessings."

Thanksgiving article (part 1) from Godey's Lady's Book, February 1860.

"Editor’s Table.
THE NEW NATIONAL HOLIDAY.
We may now consider Thanksgiving a National Holiday. It will no longer be a partial and vacillating commemoration of gratitude to our Heavenly Father, observed in one section or State, while other portions of our common country do not sympathize in the gratitude and gladness. It is to be a regularly occurring Festival, appointed by the concert of the State Governments to be observed on the last Thursday in November – thus made, for all future time, THE AMERICAN THANKSGIVING DAY.

Such is the happy inference we draw from the patriotic unanimity of the Governors in their last appointments of Thanksgiving. On the last Thursday of last November, the people of the following states held and consecrated this New National Holday: --
*New York.
*Pennsylvania.
*Massachussetts.
*Maryland.
*New Hampshire.
*New Jersey.
*North Carolina.
*South Carolina.
*Georgia.
*Connecticut.
*Rhode Island.
*Virginia.
Kentucky.
Tennessee.
Ohio.
Indiana. Mississippi.
Illinois.
Alabama.
Maine.
Arkansas.
Michigan.
Florida.
Texas.
Iowa.
Wisconsin.
California.
Minnesota.
Nebraska Territory.
Kansas Territory.
District of Columbia.
*The old states of the "Confederacy" that framed the Constitution and decreed the perpetual Brotherhood of citizens of "The United States of North America." Virginia, as a state, did not, we regret to say, participate in Thanksgiving; because Governor Wise had doubts concerning his official authority to appoint such an observance. But the Presbytarian Synod of the State, and the cities of Fredericksburg, Norfolk, and Alexandria joined in the Festival, which was thus sanctioned by a large portion of the people of old and honored Virginia. Next November, we hope, that State will have its Union Thanksgiving.

It will be seen from this list that the concert of public opinion is nearly unanimous. Indeed, we may assume that all the States approve this idea of a National Thanksgiving, because those that did not join last November have done so in years past. The late omission, therefore, was caused, no doubt, by forgetfulness. This leads us to suggest the necessity that the time of holding this New Holiday should be fixed by each State, making it the duty of the governor to issue his proclamation yearly for the last Thursday in November."