Celebrate Thanksgiving the Old-Fashioned Way
The stores stock up on canned cranberry sauce, chilled whipped topping, and other quick fix foods to simplify the Thanksgiving Day preparations. Actually, fixing the foods is part of the fun, so don't fill the shopping cart with cans and jars.
To have a real old-fashioned Thanksgiving, you need to grow, pick, store and prepare the food yourself. Here's what my 85 year old mother wrote about her childhood Thanksgiving meals:
"I remember one year we had a big snow storm just before Thanksgiving. After the storm quit Daddy and I went rabbit hunting out on the prairie and had such good luck we had roast rabbit instead of chicken to be thankful for. I don't remember anyone complaining.
Wild gooseberries for the pies were found growing along the Cottonwood River near Matfield Green. Picking the plump, green berries was quite dangerous I thought. The wild bushes were very thorny and everybody would collect a lot of scratches along with the berries. Back home the gooseberries had to be stemmed to remove the dried brown blossom ends then cooked with sugar. Mother put them in canning jars and then in a boiling water bath to preserve them for winter use in sauce or pies."
Countdown to Thanksgiving Day 2011
1930s Thanksgiving Day Menu
by Gail Lee Martin, author of My Flint Hills Childhood
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Roast hen and sage dressing
Giblet gravy and mashed potatoes
Green beans with tiny winter onions
Deviled eggs
Candied sweet potatoes
Sweet pickled beets
Sweet, dill and bread and butter pickles
Pumpkin pies with whipped cream
Gooseberry pies
Blackberry cobbler with thick cream
Hot rolls and butter
Sand plum and elderberry jelly
Coffee and milk
First Grow a Pumpkin
Food for the old-fashioned Thanksgiving was home-grown
Colorful Pumpkins! by smilingred73
My mom tells about her dad searching the seed catalogs in January thinking about what pumpkins he would plant to harvest at Thanksgiving time. Kansas was hot and dry so it was a challenge to bring in a crop with squash bugs fighting you all the way. If you had a spring-fed creek then you could keep the garden watered. In a season where the pumpkins didn't make it, my grandmother would use carrots or sweet potatoes with the traditional pumpkin pie spices to get the same taste.
Put On An Apron - Thanksgiving Is Coming
The humble apron kept the cook's clothing clean as she worked preparing the Thanksgiving feast. Old-fashioned.... yes, but really practical. Get out an apron and right away, you'll feel more in charge. Tap into your grandmother and great-grandmother's apron wearing selves this Thanksgiving.(photo: Gail Lee Martin reading her story "My Mother's Apron.")
Find Vintage Aprons on eBay
Apron Memories
A Poem to Grandma's Apron
Gail Lee Martin and Her Cooking
Click on each photo to see it larger
Old-Fashioned Recipes from the Heartland
by Gail Lee Martin
Vintage Girl Baking Cookies by vintagegiftmall
- How to Make Dandelion Jelly
- This old family recipe makes lovely jelly. My husband's great-grandmother called it Golden Blossom Jelly. Here's how to make it.
- How to Make Corn Cob Jelly
- This vintage recipe was passed down from my husband's ancestor, Mary Black of Blackjack, Kansas. It's amazing what you can turn into jelly. Here's how to make corn cob jelly the old-fashioned way.
- How to Make Apple Spice Rings from Cucumbers
- People are really fooled by these spice rings made from cucumbers. They really look and taste like apple spice rings. (That's spicy like sweet pickles, not spicy like pizza.) Here's how to make these.
- How to Make Breaded Tomatoes
- This old-fashioned side dish is easy to fix when you need to fill everyone up cheaply. It's one way to get more vegetables into your meals. Here's how to make it.
- Make Giblet Gravy for a Crowd
- Here's my way of making gravy to go with the turkey for special meals and Thanksgiving.
- Eat Well Using Free Food from Nature
- Nature provides free food that most people don't slow down enough to even see. There's wild food and unpicked crops going to waste. Here's our methods for using these wholesome and free foods in meals.
Read About Old-Fashioned Thanksgivings
Homespun Reading That Includes a 1930s Thanksgiving
This is my mother's book about her childhood during the Great Depression
My Flint Hills Childhood: Growing Up in 1930s Kansas by Gail Lee Martin
More About Gail Lee Martin and Her Book
- Author's Website
- Read about Gail Lee Martin and an excerpt from My Flint Hills Childhood.
- Preview the book, My Flint Hills Childhood
Preview Some Sections of My Flint Hills Childhood
Find Vintage Thanksgiving Items on eBay
Related Topics
by Virginia Allain
Spread Some Thanksgiving Cheer to This Charity
The Food For Everyone Foundation's mission is to teach and assist families everywhere to grow successful and sustainable vegetable gardens, and really enjoy the experience.
This Thanksgiving Magazine page written by
vallain
I'm Virginia Allain, a retired librarian. Now I devote myself to writing, photography and designing books to self-publish. Having fun!
My current project...
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