Episode 60 Local GOODfood+wine
by Paige Donner
For the longest time, there was a shop called Thanksgiving in the Marais here in Paris. It was in the Quartier St. Paul, just next to the Village St. Paul. The little shop carried all things delicious that were American. When you were hankering for Duncan Hines brownie mix, or a box of Cap’n Crunch or even a pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving… that’s where you’d go.
And then one day, it was just no more. It didn’t go away with a bang. It just sort of disappeared. After being there for decades, one day it was just gone.
This year as we celebrate the 400th year of the Pilgrims’ landing on Plymouth Rock, the inspiration for our most American of holidays, Thanksgiving, I got to thinking about this little shop that once was here in the Marais in Paris.
Celebrating 400 years of the Mayflower’s landing on the shores of America is cause for celebration. To think all that has been accomplished these past 400 years. We have much to be grateful for.
With such cause for celebration, it’s disheartening to hear reports from the U.S. calling for a curbing, if not outright cancellation, of this year’s Thanksgiving Holiday celebrations.
For most Americans Thanksgiving is the one holiday per year we spend with family, as in extended family. At least, for those of us lucky enough to still have that. Limiting contact with family members this year at Thanksgiving as a way to avoid potential contact and transmission of a virus seems, well, depressing.
Here in France, and in most of Europe, the heritage of traditions are centuries, even millennia old. In America, we have less of a recorded history to celebrate and acknowledge. Thanksgiving is one of our very few holidays that celebrate a uniquely American heritage.
I hope, like the little shop called Thanksgiving that once existed here in Paris’ heart, our holiday of Thanksgiving does not whimperingly fade away, only to one day cease to exist at all.
So in honor of John and Priscilla Alden, my ancestors who braved a trans-Atlantic crossing in the early 17th century to flee persecution and establish a life for themselves and their offspring on new shores, I toast to Thanksgiving and to their heartiness. As well as the rest of the passengers on the Mayflower.
I also deeply acknowledge and offer up my gratitude to the indigenous peoples, the native Americans, our very own First Nations people, without whom none of the Mayflower passengers could have survived that first winter. The Wampanoag Tribe’s role in our survival has been woefully downplayed over the centuries, even ignored. To these peoples who allowed our forefathers and ‘foremothers’ to survive, we owe a deep, deep debt of gratitude.
And that is truly what Thanksgiving is all about. Gratitude.
Thanksgiving is finding in our hearts all that we are grateful for.
It is remembering that regardless of our circumstances and situations, there is always something to be grateful for.
Please find in our show note on LocaFood.wine the short video of the Wampanoag Tribe entiteld, We Are Still Here. The tradition of fall harvest feasts actually were a native American tradition that we took from them… and eventually renamed Thanksgiving.
You can also find from historical accounts of the first Thanksgiving, Memoirs from Pilgrims William Bradford and Edward Winslow that depict the Wampanoag tribe’s welcome of foreign settlers — which paved the way for the first Thanksgiving
We Are Still Here – The Wampanoags
We Are Still Here, made with the help of Native American-owned creative agency SmokeSygnals.
An estimated 70-80% of the Wampanoag nation had been wiped out by plague from 1616-1619
The Wampanoag tribe still exists, having become a federally recognized nation residing on a tiny bit of reservation land at the southern tip of Martha’s Vineyard. Have these two groups of people shared another feast in the past 400 years?
And with that, I turn to our feature interview for this month’s podcast: the author of Pancakes in Paris and the sequel, Let Them Eat Pancakes. Craig Carlson is a Parisian who opened the beloved Breakfast In America restaurants decades ago in Paris. When you Oh-So-Need a big breakfast of thick buttermilk pancakes drenched in maple syrup and melted butter this is where you go. And in the winters, they offer the bottomless cup of coffee and a slice of pie in the late afternoons.
Craig and his partner, Julien Chameroy, speak to us this episode about his books and about being the most famous American pancake purveyor in Paris.
Thanksgiving Music Track:
Chromeo – Six Feet Away
HOLIDAY Gift Guide for the Wine (Goddess) Lover In Your Life!
Porto Vino – stylish bags with a secret stash
Wine Purse
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EPISODE 59 IS ALSO BEING BROUGHT
TO YOU BY PARIS FOOD AND WINE
You can follow the restored Mayflower’s voyage:
https://www.plimoth.org/mayflowervoyage
Those wishing to track Mayflower can use the MarineTraffic app or website: http://www.marinetraffic.com.
Search for MAYFLOWER and choose the ‘US Sailing Vessel’ result.
https://www.plimoth.org/learn/just-kids/homework-help/thanksgiving/thanksgiving-history
For information on food at the First Thanksgiving, go to Partakers of our Plenty. For additional children’s resources on Thanksgiving, you might want to view Scholastic’s Virtual Field Trip to Plimoth Plantation, explore our Online Learning Center, or visit our Homework Help page. If you’d like to join us for Thanksgiving dinner, please visit our Thanksgiving Dining and Special Events page.
From Historical Accounts of the First Thanksgiving
Memoirs from Pilgrims William Bradford and Edward Winslow depict the Wampanoag tribe’s welcome of foreign settlers — which paved the way for the first Thanksgiving
Samoset was like the Secretary of State of the Wampanoag Nation, sent by his Commander-in-Chief Massasoyt to establish diplomatic relations with the settlers. Samoset spoke of another native, Squanto, the last member of the Patuxet tribe (primarily wiped out by a plague) who had been held in Europe as a slave for almost fifteen years before successfully pleading for his freedom. Squanto spoke English with great fluency. As Massasoyt’s ambassador, he moved into the settlement, taught the Pilgrims to live off the land, and forged a bond between the two people. When the harvest of 1621 was successful, the pilgrims celebrated with a feast and invited the Wampanoag as their guests to show their gratitude. Winslow writes:
Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruits of our labor. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which we brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.
Squanto was introduced to the Pilgrims in the spring of 1621, became friends with them, and taught them how to hunt and fish in order to survive in New England. He taught the Pilgrims how to plant corn by using fish as fertilizer and how to plant gourds around the corn so that the vines could climb the cornstalks. Due to his knowledge of English, the Pilgrims made Squanto an interpreter and emissary between the English and Wampanoag Confederacy.
What really happened at the first Thanksgiving in 1621? The Pilgrims did not introduce the concept of thanksgiving; the New England tribes already had autumn harvest feasts of thanksgiving. To the original people of this continent, each day is a day of thanksgiving to the Creator. In the fall of 1621, William Bradford, the governor of the Plymouth Colony, decided to have a Plymouth harvest feast of thanksgiving and invited Massasoit, the Grand Sachem of the Wampanoag Federation, to join the Pilgrims. Massasoit came with approximately 90 warriors and brought food to add to the feast, including venison, lobster, fish, wild fowl, clams, oysters, eel, corn, squash and maple syrup. Massasoit and the ninety warriors stayed in Plymouth for three days
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ESA Explores
EPISODE 60 IS ALSO BEING BROUGHT TO YOU BY PARIS FOOD AND WINE &
CHÉRIE DU VIN
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Contact Host-Producer, Paige Donner @http://PaigeDonner.info
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