November 28 - Turkey-free Thanksgiving

nPosted on November 28, 2019

Key points

A tofu “turkey” with stuffing!

nThere is a lot of talk, these days, about eating less meat, or no meat. Many people are vegetarians (people who eat no meat, including fish), pescatarians (people who eat no meat except for fish), and vegans (people who eat only plant-based foods – so no meat, fish, dairy, or eggs).

There are three main reasons to eat less or no meat: (1) for your own health, (2) for the sake of the environment, and (3) because the meat, dairy, and egg industries are cruel to animals.

nAll of those folks no doubt skip turkey at Thanksgiving – either as an entire family or as an individual vegetarian in a meat-eating family.

Many people who eat meat just don’t love the traditional turkey meal. They’d rather have a leg of lamb or a prime rib or…?

For those who complain that we should stick with turkey because it’s traditional, there is ample evidence that the original Thanksgiving featured lots of things alongside boiled or roasted wild turkey – IF there was turkey at all! Other waterfowl, such as ducks, geese were apparently more popular with the Pilgrims. Swans and even passenger pigeons are also likely. Venison (deer meat) was there for sure, and it’s probable that lots of seafood was served – eels, mussels, lobster, and clams.

nOf course there was a lot of other food as well – corn, beans, squash, pumpkins, turnips, carrots, chestnuts, walnuts, beechnuts, onions, garlic, corn-based porridge, and cornbread.

This “traditional” Thanksgiving meal
is mostly foods that were added
to historical tradition somewhere
along the way. These upstarts were
far from traditional when they were
first included!

nBut there definitely were no mashed potatoes, sweet potato casseroles, or cranberries. And there was no wheat-flour based bread, nor any pies at all. So making an argument based on tradition is a bit silly – because all of today’s traditional foods were add-ons or instead-ofs to what WAS eaten. So all of us can still add-on or instead-of, all we like, and help grow the various traditions of Thanksgiving!

nHow about some of these lovely yummies:

nStuffed acorn squash with pecans