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Thanksgiving has some fascinating spatial components to it. My wife and I prepared an article for the Geography News Network on Maps101.com that shows the historical and geographic context of the first Thanksgiving and in the memorialization of Thanksgiving as a national holiday (if you don’t subscribe to Maps 101, it is also freely available as a podcast on Stitcher Radio or iTunes).
This website is interesting because it gives us the geography of where specific foods in the country are manufactured such as cranberrie sauce, turkeys, sweet potatoes and helps us develop a rich cultural history and earn solidarity of where we come from and the traditions that make us who we are in terms of culinary choices. The original thanksgiving with the early puritan settlers in New England most likely reflected dishes that were synonomous with foods that natives grew and other local items that were family in this area. Now because of industry we to choose foods that have their origin from markets nationwide.
Love to see where the traditional American Thanksgiving food comes from. We have that, but growing up in an all Italian household Thanksgivng was more then Turkey...it had an added Italian flavor. Start with antipasto that had a prosciutto that would met in your mouth, plus cheeses, muhrooms, other meats, then would come the soup, then the pasta, could be any variety then the Turkey, but you would also have a ham because you never knew who was going to stop by, plus all the trimmings and then finally dessert with Italian cookies and pastires along with the Thanksgivng traditions of pumpkin and apple pies. We took breaks inbetween courses to watch some football and make room for more food becasue it was all good. We literally ate all day. So for us out food came form all over the world. In a nation of immigrants, we added our own flavor to an American Holiday..and to me whats more American than brining in some of your own hertitage into a holiday..we are after all a "melting pot"