Greetings from the Great Bend Public Library! I would like to wish everyone an early, “Happy Thanksgiving!” from all of us here at the library. We will be closed Thursday the 26th and Friday the 27th in observance of the holiday, and we will not have programming that week.
Since I have no events to announce, I thought this would be a perfect time to share some fun Thanksgiving facts that you can tell family and friends at the Thanksgiving table this year, be it in person or virtually.
To start off, let’s talk turkey! Since it’s also “Dinovember,” why not start with a turkey/dino fact? Did you know that a turkey’s wishbone dates back more than 150 million years to meat-eating dinosaurs like the T. Rex and the Velociraptor? When you are making a wish on the wishbone this year, think about the turkey’s long-gone cousin, and what it might be like to use a wishbone from a Velociraptor!
Female turkeys don’t actually gobble, only the males do. That is why the males of the species are called “gobblers,” while the females are called “hens.”
The first American president to officially pardon a turkey was President George H.W. Bush in 1989 (although Abraham Lincoln spared one bird that his son had grown fond of, and other presidents issued occasional unofficial pardons). Since then it has become a tradition for the current president to pardon a turkey each Thanksgiving season.
Lastly, 46 million turkeys are eaten each Thanksgiving. Turkey consumption has increased by 104% since 1970!
We can’t forget everyone’s favorite side dish, which, according to a survey, is mashed potatoes. Not in Kansas, though; we like our creamed corn the best. Last year alone, we bought 214 million pounds of potatoes and 50 million pounds of sweet potatoes as a country, just for Thanksgiving! In 1747 the first recipe for mashed potatoes appeared in a cookbook written by Englishwoman Hannah Glasse in her book, The Art of Cookery. Mashed potatoes are about 214 calories per cup, which is only a drop in the bucket of the average 3,000 calories consumed by every American on Thanksgiving.
And for dessert, we have pumpkin pie, of course! The first pumpkin pies can actually be traced back to the early settlers of the Plymouth Colony. These quasi-pie dishes were made inside hollowed-out pumpkin shells, into which they poured milk, honey, and spices before baking the whole thing. The first English settlers learned about pumpkins from Native American tribes, who grew the gourds and taught the settlers how to cultivate and use them as well. It is believed pumpkin pie was served at the first Thanksgiving 50 years after pumpkins were first introduced to settlers. Pumpkin pie may be as American as apple pie, which really isn’t American at all (maybe we should change the phrase to “as American as pumpkin pie”), but the word “pumpkin” is actually of Greek and French origin. The root word is the Greek term for a large melon “pepon,” which the French later changed to “pompon.” Then the English changed that to “pupion,” and later, “pumpkin.”
I hope this will give you some fun things to talk about at your Thanksgiving dinner, and that you have a wonderful holiday. Keep an eye on our Facebook and our website, greatbendpl.info, for upcoming programs and more. You can also message us on Facebook or email us at gbcirc@gmail.com.
Hannah Grippin is the outreach and marketing manager for the Great Bend Public Library.
