MY FIRST THANKSGIVING IN THE U.S.
by Rudy A. Arizala
27 November 2008
I recall that I arrived at Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York in September 1963, and enrolled at the Maxwell Graduate School of Citizenship for postgraduate Course in International Relations. Two months later in November, I had my first experience in celebrating Thanksgiving. A classmate of mine invited me to spend Thanksgiving Day with his family in rural America. My first time to feast on a roast turkey with cranberry sauce. It was a new experience for me.
I must say, next to Christmas, Thanksgiving is a good occasion to give thanks to the Almighty and renew bonds of family ties and friendship. How did Thanksgiving come to be celebrated in the United Status? According to US history, in mid November of 1620, the ship « Mayflower » loaded with « refugees" from the old world (Europe), landed on the shore of what we call now Massachusettes Bay. A witness to said historic landing, Governor William Bradford, wrote in his diary :
« They fell upon their knees and blessed the God of heaven, who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all the periles (sic) and miseries thereof. »
The early Pilgrims upon landing on the shores of North America fell upon their knees, praised the Lord in Thanksgiving for a safe journey across the seas and arrival at a new but bountiful land.
A year later in 1621, the first Thanksgiving feast at Plymouth was celebrated with the first successful crop of corn, squash and beans and the meal was composed of foods gathered from the woods and waters around the new Plymouth colony such as wild ducks, and geese which could be hunted much more easily than the wary wild turkeys. Gooseberries, wild plums, lobsters and eels « trod » from the nearby salt marshlands, completed the Thanksgiving meal.
Roast turkeys would come into the tables of America later after many years. According to writer Andrew Bearhs in his article « Where the Wild Things Were », it was Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of the magazine Godey's Lady Book, who in her 1827 novel « Northwood, » advocated celebrating Thanksgiving with turkey. Then in 1879, an American traveller, Mark Twain, homesick and while sitting alone in an Italian hotel room wrote a long fantasy list menu of all his favorite American foods. Twain listed, among his favorite American foods cranberry sauce, « Thanksgiving style » roast turkey.
The act of Thanksgiving was later on institutionalized as a day of national observance every fourth Thursday of November. Now-a-days, almost every homes in America on that day serve on their tables roast turkey with cranberry sauce and other goodies to feast on.
Whether the early Pilgrims celebrated their first Thanksgiving meal with turkey or not, enjoy your Thanksgiving with roast turkey and cranberry or apple sauce.
My first experience of eating roast turkey with cranberry sauce during a Thanksgiving meal in the United States, was at the home of my classmate in Syracuse University. He was kind enough to invite me for a Thanksgiving dinner upon knowing that I would be alone in my room at the University student's hostel.
On this day, may I, therefore, wish you and your family a BLESSFUL THANKSGIVING !
End