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Happy Thanksgiving, Canadians!

Where's the turkey?

Unlike Americans, who commemorate the arrival of the Puritan pilgrims to the New World, Canadian Thanksgiving celebrates a successful harvest and good cheer. This Canadian holiday's hallmarks are the cornucopia and the pumpkin pie-- but not necessarily the turkey.

Fleeing British loyalists during the American Revolution brought the tradition of turkey to north of the border, but Canadians can look to two other historical feasts that pinpoint their own roots of this seasonal celebration, and neither one had turkey on its table.

In the late summer of 1578, while looking for the Northwestern Passage to the Orient, Sir Martin Frobisher held a meal on what is now Baffin Island in the Territory of Nunavut. The narrow inlet that now bears his name, Frobisher mistook for a straight to Asia. The feast was to bolster his weary crew during his first of three trips to the New World.

In the winter of 1606 - 1607, Samuel de Champlain, a French explorer who founded Quebec City and explored the St. Lawrence River, started L'Order des Bon Temps, or The Order of Good Cheer-perhaps the New World's first social club.

The early colonists settled on an island in Nova Scotia's Bay of Fundy and intended to outlast the winter there. To rid themselves of the winter blues, they took turns hosting dinners and trying to outdo each other with their abilities to hunt and forage and to prepare and serve meals.

So- since the earliest times people in Canada have come together at this time of year to celebrate the harvest and hunker down for the winter months. Interestingly, neither Sir Frobisher nor Champlain's meals included any turkey, now the staple at most Canadian tables on Thanksgiving; instead both menus consisted of different types of water foul and venison. A fact which may give you pause the next time you want to prepare a "traditional" meal for Canadian Thanksgiving.

Traditional Thanksgiving Recipes

Little is know about what Champlain’s Order of Good Cheer actually served, but a CBC website, suggest likely recipes from 1606. Including:

Mussels Cooked Under Pine Needles

Venison Pie

Braised Pheasant

Quenelles of Cod with Lobster Sauce

-- Brooke (Happiness@Hill.top), October 11, 2004

Answers

burp. . . I mean BUMP!

-- Brooke and HL (Friends are treasured@Hill.top), October 11, 2004.

Thanks, Brooke!

We had between 25 and 40 people come here for Thanksgiving turkey dinner yesterday. Unfortunately, the 30 pound turkey I had put into the fridge on Saturday to defrost, was still completely frozen at noon yesterday. So I made a mad dash to the grocery store to buy a couple of hams and a bunch of turkey pieces which I then tossed into the oven with the stuffing I'd prepared for the still frozen turkey. We usually do a pot-luck dinner, so that was all I had to prepare for our feast. It all turned out great, but at 2:30 I was really worried that my family would show up at 3 for dinner at 4 without a bite of protein in sight. Today, I baked up the 30 pound turkey and took it down to a shelter to serve for their dinner tonight. I felt supremely UN-grateful when I had it brought home to me again just how many there are in my own area who cannot eat every day - how much we (well, I do anyway) take for granted!

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), October 11, 2004.

This weekend I'm off to the country-side to get snowed on. Hope you're all well!

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.ent), October 15, 2004.

Happy Thanksgiving Tricia! It sounds like you had a close call there with the dinner and all! Glad it turned out ok. Be well, Sweet Princess.

Soon (December) this here FRL will have another birthday so that is something else we can all celebrate... I think it will be our sixth anniversary!

Greetings to Brooke, Hardliner, Unk and all FRLians. As time passes I think we realize just how special what we had over at EDs really was. It is good to hear from youz guyz, and from everyone else who stays in touch here. To think that some of us are still keeping in touch with the FRL, to me, well, I wouldn't have believed it if you told me that back in late '98.

-- Rob Michaels (sonofdust@Hi.Tricia), October 16, 2004.

To think that some of us are still keeping in touch with the FRL, to me, well, I wouldn't have believed it if you told me that back in late '98.

Isn't that the truth?! There's a lot of things I wouldn't have believed had someone told me back in late '98!

As time passes I think we realize just how special what we had over at EDs really was.

Indeed.

-- Brooke (Happiness@Hill.top), October 16, 2004.

Yeah, yeah, that’s all nice about the Canuckian Thanksgiving and all, but of course, there’s more to the story................

It was back in the summer of 1576, before anyone actually found the famous Northeast Passage to China, which as we all know was the route by which the millions of Norwegian immigrants, lead by Leaf Eriksonsonson, came to the fertile fields of Oregon and Napa Valley, that my historical research has led in my never-ending endeavor to provide education to my friends and staunch supporters, represented in large part by you bunch of FRL unwashed illiterates. Anyway, like I was saying, BEFORE they found the Northeast Passage, a little known Cajun explorer named Sir Maurice Frogbasher was probing the swampy coast of the Golfo de Mejeco (that’s Gulf of Mexico to you fourth-grade graduates), intent on finding the fabled Southwest Passage to the island continent of Ozimundo, which turned out in fact, to be nothing more than a desert isle, inhabited by wallabies and a certain criminal element from Europe.

I have just now published the results of a campaign of research, based on an ancient document hidden away for millennia, and only recently discovered by myself behind the pealing wallpaper in the ladies restroom of the downtown McDonalds in Mamou Louisiana. Of course, this research is being funded by a grant from the Bayou Society for Preservation Of Historical Stuff and Tabasco (BS-POST). (Actually, Tabasco has nothing to do with history, but they’re the only business down here with any money.) But, I digress from the story.

During that long and lonely summer, when Frogbasher and his men fruitlessly explored the low country of the Teche, the Calcasseu, and the big muddy, they eventually came to a sad end when their peroux ran aground on a mucky dead end of a miserable little bayou in what is now eastern Texas. This location is remembered today in folklore by the local populace as “Frogbasher’s Folly”, or more commonly, “Frogbasher’s Fu** Up”.

But, Maurice Frogbasher proved to be a leader imbued with the true early qualities of the Cajun, and promptly declared the day a holiday. The men rapidly set up large cauldrons to prepare what would become the first of the traditional Thanksgiving feasts in the New World. Of course, being actually beyond the known frontier, and being limited by dwindling provisions, the men were somewhat daunted in their meal preparations. Their meager meal consisted only of boiled swamp crustaceans, fried turkey, dirty rice, jambalaya, boiled corn and potatoes, etouffe, boudain sausage, fried garfish balls, roast alligator tail, banana pudding with those little vanilla cookies, and what was to become the pinnacle of holiday fare, the turducken.

After three days, the men found themselves not only filled with turducken, but also filled with renewed spirit and determination to succeed in their task of exploration. Unfortunately, the navigator, Louie Labeaux, who was by then on the sleepy side of a three day drunk, set them a course in the exact opposite direction. A month later, they found themselves once again among the moss-covered oaks of Terebonne Parish. It was here they abandoned their trek, and founded the first Cajun social club, “Lais-sez Bon Temps Roule”, or ‘let the good times roll”, and promptly set about decorating their boats which lead to the tradition of the colorful “floats” of Mardi Gras.

So, let the record show that the first traditional Thanksgiving feast is attributable to the redoubtable Maurice Frogbasher and his crew. However, as is so often the case with historical fact, this incident has been hijacked by others in promotion of their own suspicious motives. We all are familiar with the notion put forth by the Pilgrims as to how they invented Thanksgiving. Of course, to this very day, Pilgrim’s Pride Poultry is the number one supplier of T-day turkeys in America. I mean, just think about it. And tell me Ocean Spray didn’t have a hand in the “tradition” of cranberry sauce.

Now, there seems to be some interlopers from Canukianna who wish us to believe THEY invented Thanksgiving, for cryin’ out loud! With cod fish, no less. I’ve seen cod fish, and there ain’t a single one of them with “quenelles”, I’ll tell you that. Anyway, not to rain on your Thanksgiving Day parade, but you Canuckians just go ahead and enjoy your braised pheasants and keep your mitts off of the turducken. And next time, we’re gonna have to talk about how the Cajuns actually migrated to Nova Scotia where they became the “Arcadians” and gave to Canukianna their rich back-water French heritage, but that’s another story. And hopefully, another grant.

-- Perfessor Lon (lgal@exp.net), October 17, 2004.

ROTFL Lon!

-- helen (mule@falling.down), October 17, 2004.

Somethin in yore doutfull history of the exploration of what wazzit agin caug my intrest. Tell me more about that grant. Im feelin a inspirashun comin on. Or is it dinnertime. Hard to tell sometimes. But I thaink its inspirashun. Weel no better in a couple o hours after dinner an after you get back to me about that grant stuff.

-- Redneck (Redneck@loadedwithliturarypoten.shul), October 18, 2004.

LOL, Lon!

I wrote an answer to this before, but I guess the gremlins ate it :-(

We now have about 8 inches of snow - I think winter has arrived. The trees are absolutely gorgeous, it makes it almost worth cold weather!

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.ent), October 19, 2004.

8 inches of snow?? Oh, my!

-- Brooke (Happiness@Hill.top), October 20, 2004.

Brooke, I thought the same thing - SNOW!! I took Kit and Freddie to the South Texas State Fair last night, and we broke a sweat just riding the carrousel. It was in the 80's and humid. We ate hot dogs and corn on the cob and funnel cake and ice cream with hot fudge. Well, actually, I watched them eat all that stuff, and drooled a lot. I would have slapped my granny for a candy apple! This year, Kit would only sit on the bench on the carrousel and not even ride the horses. He was pretty emphatic about the tilt-a-whorl and the flying elephants as well. But, he won a stuffed green snake for busting ballons with darts, and we all had a generally great time. (except for the drooling)

-- junkfood-hungry old lon (lgal@exp.net), October 20, 2004.

Lol Lon. I came out to Oz on a ship called the Arcadia. Does that qualify me as part Cajun?

Ah Tricia. Make a snowball for me will you.

-- Carol (c@ozimundo.com), October 20, 2004.

Oh, that sounds like a great time at the fair! Fairground eats are hard to exactly duplicate at home, ya' know. Maybe has something to do with the other odors not co-mingling, and so ya' don't get the full effect. The scent of Eau de Bovine, along with a whiff of gear oil from the Tilt-A-Whirl just seem to add a certain "something" to the flavor experience of Granny's Funnel Cakes, IMO. ;-)

Yup, still hot and muggy down here as well. Last night it never got below 77° and the humidity was 85%. Forecast says 90's for the rest of the week. Could be worse, though. Could have 8 inches of snow. No thankyouverymuch.

Hmmmm.

You just had to describe that certain item that Kit won, didntcha? Tried to snake sneak that in, huh?

-- Brooke (Happiness@Hill.top), October 21, 2004.