Quote:
Originally Posted by Garywt
The one thing I cannot stand is the way people today try to change history to match todays standards. History is history whether we agree with it or not and it should not be changed. Thanksgiving has become a great family holiday and it should be embraced. Many things in history would be so wrong today but at the time they were excepted behavior and we cannot go back in time to change it. Every time someone tries to change history or remove a statue etc I cringe.
|
As long as people aren't trying to pretend that the history never happened, or happened completely differently than it actually happened, we should absolutely embrace our current holidays and accept them on their own merits.
Thanksgiving is, and should be, about celebrating what we're thankful for in our lives. It isn't about the Colonialists and Native Americans getting together to share a meal in peace and love and harmony. Also, corn would've been dried corn used in grinding for cornmeal. Fresh corn was used as hog feed and wasn't considered fit for human consumption at all. There would've been better options than turkey, which were ONLY wild, and horribly gamey tasting. Deer were much more prolific in New England early winter, plus various fish including eel. There were not likely any potatoes at all, and pumpkin pie wasn't much of a thing in the 1600's, since sugar was scarce.
Most of the "traditional feast" is a modern tradition, not a historic one. That's not to say our traditional feast isn't valid. It's 100% totally valid. But we need to stop pretending there's some long history leading to the First Thanksgiving to back it up. That - is fiction.