Think you know Thanksgiving? Check out these myths:

[riverdeep]

'Pilgrims' in somber clothing sitting respectfully around a table of turkey and pumpkin pie with Indians as a celebration of thanks-that's our story and we're sticking to it!

MYTH: It was a solemn, religious occasion.
THE TRUTH: Hardly. It was a three-day harvest festival that included drinking, gambling, athletic games, and even target shooting with English muskets (which, by the way, was intended as a friendly warning to the Indians that the Pilgrims were prepared to defend themselves.)

MYTH: They ate turkey.
THE TRUTH: The Pilgrims ate deer, not turkey...
A few things definitely weren't on the menu, including pumpkin pie - in those days, the Pilgrims boiled their pumpkin and ate it plain. And since the Pilgrims didn't yet have flour mills or cattle, there was no bread other than corn bread, and no beef, milk, or cheese. And the Pilgrims didn't eat any New England lobsters, either. Reason: They mistook them for large insects.

http://www.neatorama.com/2008/11/22/thanksgiving-myths/

[msongs]

1. here have a small pox infested blanket - its official policy nt

[Javaman]

34. If I recall the small pox blankets were used by the brits at a fort in what is now

detroit.

Also, Squanto, the native american that helped the pilgrims, was pretty much the last of his tribe. Most of his tribe were killed off by small pox from earlier settlers from europe.

but my brain is a bit fuzzy so I may have the info switched.

[jmg257]

2. Drinking, games, and guns!! - how American can you get! LOVE it!

[soothsayer]

3. don't forget the gambling! Sounds alot like Thanksgiving at our place,

come to think of it.

[hlthe2b]

9. No family squabbles? Definitely not a "real" Thanksgiving...

;)

[jmg257]

12. Ahh- true - a bit o'poker while digesting...always fun! (darn wife usually wins though). nt

[2Design]

4. ain't that the truth for some in this nation - things are the same n/t

[liberal N proud]

7. There have been rednecks in America since the day the Pilgrims landed

[jhrobbins]

18. I think the Pilgrims were the original 'rednecks' in America

I meant the Puritans.

[old mark]

36. Oh, hell yes! I planned on shooting off of my back porch all weekend

but those pesky neighbors always get in a snit.
A few bullet holes in their fridge, and they act like it's the end of the fucking world.....
Never heard of duct tape, I guess.
mark

[rug]

5. It doesn't say they didn't have little marshmallows on their yams.

So there.

[heliarc]

6. They were right.

Lobsters are almost insects. They are in the same Phylum... Crustacea and Insecta. Very closely related.

[hlthe2b]

13. 'Like eating raisins when they have Dom Perignon on the shelf!

LOL

[ThomWV]

8. So, they ate 'corn bread'did they?

I find that statement interesting.

[Marrah_G]

27. The locals did teach them how to grow maize...........

[bdamomma]

33. I think the Indians had alot to do with Thanksgiving

they are the ones who had the crops and did the work and invited the Pilgrims to participate in the festivities.

[Marrah_G]

38. Yes- the colony never would have survived without their help

[Warpy]

10. I'm always amazed by the "US is a Christian nation!" folks

and their idea of who the Puritans were and what their real influence was.

In the first place, only about a third of the Mayflower settlers were religious people. The rest were fast buck artists, indentured servants, and a few convicts sentenced to hard labor.

In the second place, the per capita alcohol consumption of the whole crew was prodigious. Considering the disinhibition alcohol causes, I sincerely doubt many of them were particularly straight laced. I would imagine the majority were cockeyed most of the time.

In the third place, the Plimoth colony wasn't a highly successful one. The harsh climate restricted the income generating possibilities and the harsh religious climate generated few replacement colonists. Jamestown was the colony to go to if you wanted to get rich quick.

While wild turkey was often on the menu, a truly celebratory meal would have been a whole deer.

An interesting factoid about lobster: they finally did learn to eat the things thanks to their tribal neighbors. However, concerned relatives managed to get a law passed in Maine that called it cruel to serve prisoners lobster more than three days a week.

[Critters2]

24. Thje Pilgrims weren't Puritans. They were Brownists.

Puritans maintained their membership in the Anglican Church until leaving England. The Brownists, or Independents, broke with the church while still living in England. Brownists were the working poor, and thus had less to lose by breaking with the church and dominant culture than the Puritans, who were the merchant class.

Brownists were dominant in the Plymouth Colony--Plymouth, Cape Cod, the Buzzards Bay area. Puritans were granted charter for the Massachusetts Bay Colony--basically Boston and north.

[TheMightyFavog]

30. People drank a lot back then because of the quality of the drinking water.

End of Line.

[KansDem]

11. NO WAY!!! This is Thanksgiving...

...and don't you try to dissonant my cognitive!

[hlthe2b]

15. Oh, Lordy... Grandma's about to kick back and go....

NATIVE! LOL

[riverdeep]

16. Yep, and isn't that Norman Rockwell himself looking at us knowingly

there in the bottom corner?

[Raschel]

14. And the Pilgrims' favorite music was

Plymouth rock

[ThomWV]

17. Trick question. The Pilgrims didn't listen to music, in fact they dunked people who did.

[Raschel]

20. Alot of drinking and no music? Pah!!

[SpiralHawk]

39. That was the Puritans

The au courant Pharisees of their era, who today would be known as republicon hypocrites

[Muttocracy]

19. does that mean no butter?! :faint:

[Raschel]

21. I don't care what anyone says, I just know they had the canned cranberries

[KansDem]

22. Are you referring to the kind that you just slid out from the can on a plate and sliced?

Mmmmm! :9

[Raschel]

40. Them's the ones! (one day later reply) Happy Thanksgiving!

[bunkerbuster1]

23. Excuse me: "mistook them for large insects"?

Face facts: Lobsters ARE large insects. Delicious, too.

[Bucky]

29. Some people freak when I point out that the closest relative to shrimp is the cockroach

I don't care how gross shrimp are... I'll never stop eating cockroach.

[atommom]

37. Hey, arthropods are arthropods.

;)

[Midlodemocrat]

25. No Stove Top Stuffing? The horror!!!

[ITsec]

26. WHAT??? No green bean casserole... with fried onions on top???

wft is with that? I'm so devastated. :sarcasm:

[Waiting For Everyman]

28. The pilgrims were very different from the Virginia colony too,

who were here several decades earlier. They did have some domestic cattle by that time because it's listed in the wills. There's also a colonial cookbook in Maryland which goes back that far. They were big on seafood and poultry, and game as you said... wild turkey and ducks included with the deer. Maryland's specialty for a long time was turtle soup. Of course blue crabs too.

[gtar100]

31. If you read between the lines, you can see the differences in cultures

"The flashy part of the meal for the colonists was the venison, because it was new to them," says Carolyn Travers, director of research at Plimoth Plantation, a Pilgrim museum in Massachusetts. "Back in England, deer were on estates and people would be arrested for poaching if they killed these deer ... The colonists mentioned venison over and over again in their letters back home."

Other foods that may have been on the menu: cod, bass, clams, oysters, Indian corn, native berries and plums, all washed down with water, beer made from corn, and another drink the Pilgrim affectionately called "strong water."

Native Americans had lived on these lands for thousands of years and its condition was kept pristine with clean water, abundant wildlife, and a sustainable population size. The European superiority complex mistook them as 'savages' who had no rights. The Native Americans, on the other hand, saw all people as worth checking out and helping. Little did they know their entire culture would be overwhelmed and brought to near extinction (many tribes actually were).

I am thankful that we didn't kill off all of the cultural aspects of Native American life and that we haven't destroyed all of the natural world. I hope for our future we find a sustainable balance between the needs of humanity and the needs of nature. Because humanity needs nature. Nature does not need humanity.

[rucky]

32. oh, we'll be gambling tomorrow.

"31" - Family tradition.

[ColbertWatcher]

35. MYTH: It's the favorite holiday among Libertarians.

THE TRUTH: Libertarians do not recognize Thanksgiving because the Constitution doesn't mention it.

[Swamp Rat]

41. Gobble gobble!

:D