Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.  I hope that your day is filled with food, fun and family.  I am very thankful this year.  I have a wonderful daughter.  I have a wonderful family.  I have a wonderful girlfriend.  I love them all very much.

Holiday Traditions

Years ago my brother-in-law and I had a Thanksgiving tradition.  We used to spend Thanksgiving day exploring caves in the nearby hills of the Ozark Mountains.  We would recruit a couple of friends to go with us.  This tradition was started because neither one of us are the football watching type and we didn't feel like being in the house while the cooking was going on.

We would leave relatively early in the morning and go to whatever cave we had chosen for that year.  Many of the caves in the Ozark Mountains can only be found by word of mouth.  Most cavers in the area choose not to mark caves on maps.  This is because many of the caves that are marked on maps around here are trashed by party goers.  True cavers have respect for caves. 

But I digress.  These caving trips were before my nieces and nephews came along.  My daughter was just a baby.  There were not that many kids to keep an eye on.  Now my brother-in-law has five beautiful kids with my sister.  They range in age from 6 to 13 years old.  We do not leave them to get underfoot while we go out caving.  Now the tradition is to take the kids on a hike while the cooks cook.

The hikes are fun and we have been doing them for a few years now.  There is a nice valley behind the houses and we usually find our way down there looking at bluffs and trees and nature in general.  Traditions tend to change over the years.  What kind of traditions do you have?

Thanksgiving Duck

A few years ago I developed an allergy to something that they give commercial chickens and turkeys.  I have never figured out what exactly it is that I am allergic to but let me just say I do not eat commercial chicken or turkey any more.  I have found that all natural, minimally processed and free range poultry does not affect me.

Sometimes the price for minimally processed poultry is a bit expensive, especially when you are buying a turkey.  Last year I paid about $75 for a free range organic turkey that weighed about 18 pounds.    It was dry and not as good as I remembered turkey to be.  This year I have decided to smoke a duck.  Average price for a duck is about $6 a pound.

Some people think that duck is greasy and not so tasty.  I however love the taste of a slow smoked duck.  If cooked properly the duck will lose much of the fat that gives it the greasy taste.  Be cautious if you are planning to smoke a duck and make sure your drip pan never runs dry.  I am not saying that I made a flaming.... okay yes, I am saying I caught a duck on fire.

I may be the only one in my family to eat any duck this year and it has been suggested that perhaps I should get a Cornish Game Hen instead, but I am stubborn and refuse to do what is suggested to me sometimes.  That is part of the reason that I am known as Eric The Bastard.  I guess everyone will just have to continue to deal with my little idiosyncrasies.

Five Myths about Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is the Red Headed Step Child of the Holiday Season. At most department stores the Christmas decorations are going up before they even have the Halloween stuff in the clearance section. thanksgiving just gets lost in the transition. It hasn't always been that way but at this rate Thanksgiving will only be around for a few more years. Here are some myths about Thanksgiving and the facts.

Myth number 1: Pilgrims started Thanksgiving

Nope. 100% untrue. Pilgrims were too busy building houses and fending off wild animals and killing the natives to have any kind of celebration! Thanksgiving started with the celebration of the arrival of Spanish explorer Juan de Onate landed in Texas near El Paso on the banks of the Rio Grande. It was more than two decades before the Pilgrims had their first Thanksgiving celebration.

Myth number 2: Thanksgiving is all about Family

Yeah right. The only Holiday where more people get arrested in a domestic dispute is Christmas! Thanksgiving was set up for communities to come together to celebrate the harvest. This gave people that would not normally have a chance to get together to meet. A lot of times it was more of a traders market with an evening feast.

Myth number 3: Thanksgiving was about religion

If by religion you mean thanking your lucky starts that that drought or too much rains or fires or animals didn't destroy your crops! Religion did not play a roll in thanksgiving back in the 1500's in early America. Like I mentioned earlier it was more about community and less about church.

Myth number 4: Thanksgiving is all about the Turkey

Alright, today it is called Turkey Day but back in the 1500's it was more "the kill of the day" not necessarily Turkey. Most animals start rutting when it gets cooler. You were as likely to have a deer on the plate as a Turkey back then. It wasn't until 1863, when Abe Lincoln made Thanksgiving a national Holiday. With a national Holiday you need a national emblem to make it official. The Victorians decided on a Turkey and Turkey-Day was born.

Myth number 5: Pilgrims wore Black and White clothes with funny hats and over sized Buckles on Everything

Yeah, right, traipsing around in the woods you always want to wear something white! And while you are at it wear thew most expensive and uncommon dye color you can get! This depiction of the style of the day is more of an artists rendering and interpretation. In reality, the pilgrims probably wore a lot of earth tones and clothing that would make work easier. Yes, they were prim and proper when they went to church (which was more likely a monthly event than a weekly event) but they worked from daylight to dark. They got dirty, and bathing had not been invented yet.

That is my take. Got any more myths about Thanksgiving you'd like for me to tell you the truth about? Leave me a comment and I will see what I can do. Say, do you know how to keep a turkey in suspense? I'll tell you tomorrow.