From pardoning turkeys to ruining dinner, here are the strangest American thanksgiving traditions that Europeans can't understand.
ADVERTISEMENTIt’s Thanksgiving Day in the US.
Americans around the world will be celebrating today, the third Thursday of November. The national holiday in the US originates in a harvest festival celebrated by the Pilgrims and Puritans that had immigrated to the US from the England in the early 17th century.
The historical account of the first US Thanksgiving revolves around a meal that the Native American Wampanoag people helped prepare for newly arrived Pilgrims who had run out of resources in 1621.
Today, families and friends gather round a table to celebrate Thanksgiving, indulging in a bountiful feast.
But this isn’t your typical European feast. Thanksgiving Dinners are defined in part by the use of ingredients native to the US.
Chief of those ingredients is the turkey.
The large bird is native to North America and is regularly the centrepiece of any Thanksgiving Dinner.
While we could go around the houses and describe all the standard components of a Thanksgiving dinner, we’re going to use this occasion to engage in an important European tradition. Here at Euronews Culture, we’re going to now poke fun at all the peculiar traditions that Americans engage in annually.
Marshmallows during a main course
This first one is a real litmus test for Europeans vs Americans.
If you read that and immediately started retching, bringing up last evening’s helping of Châteauneuf-du-Pape and Roquefort at the thought of putting a children’s sweet in a main course, we have bad news for you.
You’re probably French.
If you instead read that and thought “of course, I love candied yams”, then you should be proud to know you’re a member of the United States of America.
Europeans, steel yourselves for a moment and let us explain.
For many years, Americans have been making a dish for Thanksgiving that involved pouring a thick sugar syrup over roasted yams. They then top this with a large portion of marshmallows which are toasted in the oven. This grotesque display of gluttony is then served alongside the turkey instead of at desert.
It’s indulgent. It’s obscene. It’s… inspired?
Of course such a sugary dish sounds horrifying to us pretentious Europeans but give it a chance. Why not set all corners of your taste buds alive during one course. Salt, fat, acid, heat and sweet. It’s a culinary adventure that befits the nation that showed Europe the finger.
Pardoning the turkey
I beg your pardon??
You already likely knew that turkey is an important part of Thanksgiving. You should do, it’s even been mentioned in multiple paragraphs of this article.
ADVERTISEMENTBut did you know that between 1873 and 1913, Rhode Island farmer Horace Vose sent a turkey to the White House. From this, a tradition grew. Turkey gifts to the president became a standard feature of the holiday.
Everything became official in 1947 when President Harry S. Truman started the turkey presentation ceremony. The first time a turkey was “pardoned” though was when John F Kennedy suggested not eating his gifted bird three days before his assassination in 1963.
The act was called a pardon by the press and the tradition was enshrined by Ronald Reagen and made official by George H. W. Bush made it part of the ceremony. The turkeys are then sent off to live on farms while during 2005 to 2009, some were allowed to walk in the Thanksgiving Day Parade.
Everyone else still eats their turkeys.
Black Friday
Although brief, we mentioned that the core of Thanksgiving is a recognition of the value of the harvest, the power of the land, and – most importantly – the kindness a Native American people gave to colonial settlers.
ADVERTISEMENTWith those three values in mind, what’s the most US of A way to celebrate the end of Thanksgiving? By ripping at the flesh of your fellow American as your pry their grubby hands off the incrementally discounted tat you neither need nor want? USA! USA! USA!
Already exported over to our European shores, Black Friday sales promise incredible discounts on anything you can spend with your hard-earned dollars. Of course, when there’s a chance to consume at an even greater scale, the world’s most voracious capitalist nation goes all in.
Since the 90s, Black Friday sales have exploded into more than just innocent shopping. Wal-Marts across the land descend into a quasi-Purge style dystopia. Thousands wait outside shops before storming the entrances. Fights break out. Guns have been shot.
The fact that the Black Friday shopping event has a death toll is all the proof Europeans need for their hunches about America.
To quote Monty Python: “On second thought, let’s not go to Camelot. ‘Tis a silly place.”
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