Thanksgiving in 2020: Turkey and more

Thanksgiving Day, annual national holiday in the United States and Canada celebrating the harvest and other blessings of the past year. Thanksgiving Day is celebrated on Thursday, November 26, 2020.

Americans generally believe that their Thanksgiving is modeled on a 1621 harvest feast shared by the English colonists (Pilgrims) of Plymouth and the Wampanoag people. 

The American holiday is particularly rich in legend and symbolism, and the traditional fare of the Thanksgiving meal typically includes 8turkey, bread stuffing, potatoes, cranberries, and pumpkin pie. With respect to vehicular travel, the holiday is often the busiest of the year, as family members gather with one another.

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Why is Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday in November?

 Thanksgiving Day

Almost 170 years after the pilgrims and the Wampanoag tribe feasted together for the first unofficial Thanksgiving in 1621, the U.S. federal government decided to make it official. 

So on October 3, 1789, President George Washington declared that the nation would celebrate a “Day of Publick Thanksgivin” on November 26 that year.

While November 26, 1789, happened to fall on a Thursday, subsequent proclamations didn’t standardize that practice—according to the National Archives, other presidents chose different days and even months for the food-filled harvest holiday. 

Then, in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation stating that Thanksgiving would be celebrated every year on the last Thursday in November.

Although we don’t know exactly why Washington originally chose Thursday, there are a couple theories. The Old Farmer’s Almanac suggests that Thursday became the tradition early on because it was just far enough from the weekend that it wouldn’t overlap with the Sabbath, which many colonists observed at the time. 

It was also common for New England ministers to give religious lectures on Thursday afternoons, so it’s possible that the reflective, prayerful nature of Thanksgiving tied in nicely with the regularly scheduled pious programming.

Either way, the nation gave thanks around the table every last Thursday of November until 1939, when Thanksgiving fell on the very last day of November. 

Still recovering from the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, encouraged by retailers, decided it would benefit the economy if Thanksgiving was celebrated a week earlier, thus lengthening the holiday shopping season.

Why do we eat turkey on Thanksgiving?

Alexander Hamilton once proclaimed: “No citizen of the U.S. shall refrain from turkey on Thanksgiving Day.” 

Hamilton’s proclamation became reality, and according to the National Turkey Federation, about 45 million to 46 million turkeys are consumed each Thanksgiving.

The true answer to why we eat turkey, among other popular Thanksgiving foods like pumpkin and cranberry, was largely due to migration from New England. 

Turkey became the national dish that we eat on Thanksgiving through a decades and century-long process of the regional foods of New England consumed during traditional harvest festivals, making their way through the United States as Americans living on the east coast and in the U.S. south moved westward over time.

The Smithsonian’s historian added that the bird’s popularity spread for more pragmatic reasons too. 

First, it was native to North America and already lived on people’s properties, so it was convenient. 

Second, unlike a chicken, 15-pound to 20-pound turkeys can feed a lot of people.

2020 - Smaller turkeys

Mike Geller who owns Mike’s Organic, a Connecticut-based farm-to-home delivery service and organic market. 

He noted, however, that 2020 marks one of the first years that consumers are requesting smaller turkeys due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“A turkey on Thanksgiving is tradition, and this year, even as gatherings are notably different and shrunken down, it’s interesting to see people still seeking out the turkey, albeit for the most part in the smallest size they can get it,” explained Geller. 

“Typically we sell the same number of small turkeys as we do the largest size turkey; however, this year at Mike’s Organic we have sold 10 times as many small turkeys as large turkeys.”

来源：Mental Floss, CNBC, 图片来源于网络，如侵删

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记者：长谣监制：李璨
责任编辑：戴晨

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