Welcome back to the Learn English podcast, the podcast teaching English in context so you can learn naturally.
My name is Dr. C and I'm a Tesla Certified English teacher.
I teach English online to students who are learning it as a second language.
My goal for this podcast is that it becomes a resource that you can use to help you improve your vocabulary, fluency, and knowledge of American culture.
On today's episode, we're going to focus on that American culture aspect because we are going to discuss Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving in the United States is always celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November.
That means the date actually changes, but it's always celebrated on the same day of the week, which is on a Thursday, and it happens to be this Thursday.
So Thanksgiving is a holiday that's in the middle of what we call the holiday season.
The holiday season lasts from the end of October, which is Halloween, through January 1st, which is New Year's Day.
Thanksgiving is right in the middle of that time period, and I would say that it is a holiday that is very closely associated with food.
Thanksgiving is traditionally celebrated with a dinner with your family where you can give thanks for what you have in your life and celebrate what you have had that year.
Because of this, there are some very traditional food items that are associated with Thanksgiving that you will see on almost every Thanksgiving table.
And I want to focus on these traditional food items.
We don't have time to talk about everything that you would find at Thanksgiving, but I want to talk about the most popular foods and the little bit about their history and why they are so closely tied with Thanksgiving.
So with that, let's begin.
So the first item that we are going to start with is the centerpiece of the Thanksgiving table, the star of the show, and that is the turkey.
So I call it the star of the show or the centerpiece of the dinner table because traditionally it is, if you've ever seen a photograph of a Thanksgiving dinner, you will notice that the turkey is the largest item on the table and is traditionally put at the center of the table.
So this is actually the centerpiece, the star of the show, as you would say, when it comes to the Thanksgiving dinner.
The reason goes back to the first Thanksgiving.
So if you're not sure you haven't heard about this before, the first Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1621, and it was a gathering between the Native American peoples who were living in the North American continent and the European settlers who came from different countries such as England.
Now, this dinner, this feast between them was a harvest festival and a Goodwill gathering between the two groups.
It is believed that turkey was eaten at that first Thanksgiving feast, and that is because wild turkeys are native to North America.
So when the settlers first came to what is now known as the United States, they saw turkeys around them.
There was a lot of turkeys.
They were very abundant.
And because of that, they were easy to hunt.
You were likely to be able to at least catch one if you were trying to hunt and get turkeys.
Another reason that turkeys were eaten was because that turkeys are rather large in size.
Now, if you see a modern day turkey on a Thanksgiving table, you will notice it is very large.
And it's much larger than it was back in the 1600s due to selective breeding and other environmental factors.
But even back then, turkeys were a larger bird, larger than a chicken.
Because of this, it was a good bird to have for a feast.
You could get a lot of people to have dinner.
You could serve a lot of people with a turkey because it was a substantial bird.
It was a larger sized animal.
Also, turkeys have a variety of ways that they can be cooked.
Now, traditionally, turkeys are roasted in the oven for Thanksgiving.
That's the traditional way of cooking them.
But there are other ways as well.
If you are roasting a turkey or if you know someone who is, you will know that the process is a very, very long one.
So you do not just throw a turkey in the oven right before Thanksgiving dinner.
You first have to take out any of the gizzards, the innards of the turkey, and then you have to put it in the oven for a number of hours.
Even though this is a long process, it is, as I said, probably the most traditional food item.
You will find it in every grocery store if you come to the United States in the month of November.
They are everywhere because people do enjoy having them for Thanksgiving and having that traditional food.
It also is involved with, I would say, a little bit of the ceremony of Thanksgiving dinner in that a turkey has to be carved up before it is served.
And that's usually a role of honor, we would say.
Usually it's the patriarch of the family or someone who's sitting at the head of the table there in charge of carving the turkey and serving the turkey out to others who are sitting around the Thanksgiving dinner.
And it just has to do with like a little bit of the ceremony, the pomp and circumstances, albeit very small, of Thanksgiving.
Now, people sometimes say that turkey can be a little dry because it is a long process of cooking it in the oven, of roasting it all day.
Personally, I don't have any experience with this.
I am vegetarian, so I've never actually had turkey, but I have heard that people sometimes say it's a little bit dry and they don't like it as much.
So there are other ways of preparing it.
Another way of having it besides being roasted in the oven is to deep fry it.
This again is a little bit worrisome, a little bit controversial, because every year there are public service announcements asking people not to deep fry them because there can be accidents.
A lot of oil is needed to deep fry a turkey.
Again, as I said, turkeys are very large nowadays.
And because of that, there have been fires, people's houses have been burned when the deep fryer gets a little bit out of control.
I'll leave a link in the description to show you what I mean by this.
But there are always announcements, always commercials asking people to not do this method.
However, people are people.
They're going to do what they want.
And there are people who swear that having the deep fried turkey is the best way to have it.
Now for the turkey, another part of that tradition of Thanksgiving is having seconds and thirds when you go to the dinner table, but also having leftovers.
Turkeys are eaten as leftovers, maybe the next day in sandwiches or in other dishes.
And so that's just another way to tie it into that tradition of Thanksgiving.
So if you go to a Thanksgiving dinner, you will most likely see this turkey.
You won't see it on my table again because I'm vegetarian, but I would say almost every dinner table is going to have that Thanksgiving turkey, making it the most traditional and popular Thanksgiving food.
Our second traditional food is tied to the turkey and that is stuffing.
So stuffing is kind of what it sounds like when you have a turkey, the cavity, the opening of the turkey is hollow.
You take all the organs out and there's nothing left when you cook it.
So when you put it in the oven, what you can do is that you can actually stuff the inside of the turkey and put different food items there.
And so that's what stuffing is.
Stuffing is usually a mixture.
It can be bread based with breadcrumbs or it can also be cornmeal based depending on the area and the taste of the people who are going to eat it.
Usually you have a mixture of bread or corn and then along with vegetables, fruits, nuts, spices, again depending on who's making it and what the people want to eat, what's available.
And this is put inside the turkey.
And so that way when the turkey is roasting in the oven, the juices are released from the turkey and get absorbed by the stuffing that's inside.
That is supposed to make it very flavorful, very tasty, and that is a reason why people have it.
It's also a good way to kind of bulk out a meal.
So you have the turkey and you have the stuffing with the vegetables, the fruit, the bread mixture, and that just kind of gets you more volume.
So back in when it was originally started, that was a good way to try to kind of increase the amount of food at the table in a cost effective way.
You can also make stuffing in the oven.
So even if you don't have a turkey, you could get that mixture, mix whatever fruits, vegetables, breadcrumbs that you like.
You can put some type of broth on it.
For example, you can even put a vegetable broth if you're vegetarian or vegan, and you can put it in the oven to kind of replicate that same concept of it being in the turkey.
So this is usually served as a side dish with the turkey.
And again, because it is served with the turkey, it is one of the more traditional foods and you are likely to find it if you go to a Thanksgiving dinner.
The third food that we're going to talk about is actually a two -fir.
It's a mixture of two different things, and that is mashed potatoes and gravy.
I would say one of the most popular items because it is just a really great combination.
People love having mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving.
And again, this ties back to the first Thanksgiving dinner.
The reason is that potatoes were very abundant in North America at the time.
The potato grows very well in the North American climate.
So there was a lot of them.
And potatoes are pretty easy in terms of making them.
They're easy to cook, especially mashed potatoes.
I will say that I don't really cook very many things for Thanksgiving dinner.
The one item, though, that I can bring and that I can make is mashed potatoes.
All you have to do is cook your potato, mash it up, and then mix in whatever you like, whatever kind of flavorings you want to have with your potato.
So there's a lot of variation.
People can have different things in it, depending on what region they're in, where they live in the United States.
Some combinations might be more popular than others, but there's a lot of variety.
For example, you can put cheese in your mashed potatoes and you can have cheesy mashed potatoes.
Another combination is with garlic.
Buttermilk is also an option.
People put buttermilk in their mashed potatoes, sour cream and onion.
Really depends on what you like, what you're interested in.
But the key thing is that you have that creamy, nice comfort food taste to your mashed potatoes.
So we talk about comfort food.
It's one of those foods that you have that just kind of makes you feel happy.
It reminds you of your childhood, is really kind of soft and easy to eat and reminds you of the different holidays that you've had with your family.
So it's one of those traditional dishes.
And it's also paired with gravy.
So because of the meat aspect, because of the turkey aspect that's with Thanksgiving, traditionally, there would be pan droppings from the turkey.
And then that would be used to create a gravy sauce that you could put on the turkey itself and along with the mashed potatoes.
Even if you're not someone who eats meat like myself, you can still have gravy.
My mother makes a mushroom gravy that I love that I always have with the mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving dinner.
And so it's still a great combination.
You can really have any type of gravy you want, have any type of flavorings you want with your mashed potatoes, but you kind of mix it all together.
You have your mashed potatoes, your gravy, your turkey.
And you have that as kind of the essential Thanksgiving pairing for Thanksgiving dinner.
The fourth dish that we're going to discuss is another side dish, and that is cranberry sauce.
Now, cranberries again are native to the North American continent.
And so they were eaten by the indigenous people, the Native Americans who lived here for centuries.
And so they are a berry that's known for their tart flavor.
And because they are in season, because they're gathered in the fall season, it has been tied with Thanksgiving.
So you get cranberry sauce as being part of that traditional Thanksgiving dinner because they were harvested in the fall and they were abundant in the area, and that's where you get to tie into that tradition.
For your cranberry sauce, there is a little bit of controversy, I would say nothing major, but they're basically two camps of people who like cranberry sauce.
Now, one group of people like the canned cranberry sauce.
You can go to the grocery store, you can buy it, and then it comes in a can.
When you open up the can, you pour it out and it looks like a gelatin, I could say.
It keeps the shape of the can, which is a little disturbing.
But it looks like the can and then you slice it up in slices and then you serve it and people eat, or take, I would say, a slice of that cranberry sauce and they would eat it with their food with their turkey, for example.
Now, another camp, another group of people do not like the canned cranberry sauce.
Instead, they go for the fresh cranberry sauce.
Fresh cranberry sauce takes more time, obviously, because it's not pre -made, it's not in a can, and you cook it on the stovetop.
So you take your cranberries, you boil them, you add sugar and then you can also add some type of citrus zest, so maybe some orange zest or lemon zest, which means the peel of the orange or the lemon to help with flavoring.
This has a definite different look to it and a different taste than the canned cranberry sauce.
It is more like a jelly and you serve that with your Thanksgiving dinner.
So two different groups, if you're here in the United States, you know, try them both, see what you like.
I will say personally, I'm not a giant fan of cranberry sauce, either one of them is just a little bit too tart for me.
But again, it is a tradition and you will see it at the Thanksgiving dinner.
And the last food item that we are going to discuss, we're finally going to get to dessert and the most popular dessert, the dessert most closely tied to Thanksgiving dinner is pumpkin pie.
So pumpkin pie has the tradition like almost all the other foods on this list.
Pumpkin is grown in the North American continent, harvested in the fall, so it's available in the fall season, and there's a number of ways that you can cook pumpkin so you can have pumpkin, you can just roast it.
But one of the most popular ways, at least when it comes to Thanksgiving, is actually putting it into a pie.
Pumpkin pie is very simple to make, which I think is one of the reasons why it became such a popular dessert food.
It's relatively simple, I can say that I've made it and it takes about 10 minutes besides the time that you put it in the oven for.
So you take your pumpkin puree, which is kind of mashed up pumpkin.
This usually is sold in a can, you can get it from the grocery store.
So you take that, you take some milk, some spices, you mix it all together.
And then you put it in a pie crust.
You put that pie crust in the oven and after maybe about 20 -30 minutes, it's done.
So relatively simple, relatively quick and easy to make.
You can also buy pumpkin pie.
So you can go to grocery stores, you can go to bakeries at this time of year, and everyone has a pumpkin pie that you can buy.
And traditionally, when you serve pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving, pumpkin pies are sliced and then they're topped with a little bit of whipped cream.
And so the whipped cream helps with the sweetness, adding a little bit of sweetness, adding a little bit of flavor to the pumpkin pie.
And that's usually how you serve it for dessert.
When you are having your meal, of course, there are more desserts than that.
There's more side dishes than the ones I've talked about, but the ones that I mentioned here, again, are probably the most common food items.
If you go to someone's Thanksgiving dinner, these are the ones that you're most likely to see.
And I would encourage you, if you are in the United States, if you know someone, go to Thanksgiving, experience Thanksgiving dinner, see what it's like, try the foods and see if you like them.
If there's the ones you like or ones that you don't, even if you're not able to go to someone's house, you can also get a Thanksgiving meal to go.
There are usually restaurants that serve a special Thanksgiving menu that you can pick up and take home.
Grocery stores also do it.
So, for example, Costco has all of the Thanksgiving items.
You can buy everything and then just take it home and serve it.
So you don't need to do all the cooking or really even go to someone's house to experience the tradition.
But I would encourage you, if you have the opportunity to, if you have the chance, try Thanksgiving with a family and just see what it's like.
I hope you enjoyed this podcast and I hope you learned a little bit about the traditional Thanksgiving food.
I know that we couldn't have time to go over the entire list, but this is definitely the highlights.
And I hope you learned a little bit about the Thanksgiving menu and why we have these foods every Thanksgiving.
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