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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know

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Speaker 1: from House Stuffworks dot com. Welcome to the podcast. This

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Speaker 1: is Josh. There's Chuck. That's right, that's our best turkey. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that was not a turkey. I believe that was the

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Speaker 1: signal U the police are coming to Owen Wilson Houston

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Speaker 1: bottle rocket. That's right. Nice? Sorry, nice hipster reference, Chuck?

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Speaker 1: Is it? I thought that made me a big nerd. No, No,

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Speaker 1: that's it was a cool movie and everybody should know

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Speaker 1: about it. Um So turkeys turkeys, Yes, let's I'm not

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Speaker 1: saying it. Say it. No, let's talk turkey. Okay, so

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Speaker 1: we are talking turkey. Um it's almost Thanksgiving and I'm

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Speaker 1: I'm getting a little hungry. Yeah, it's my favorite holiday. Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Is it really? That's weird? Is it? Yeah? What's yours?

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Speaker 1: Harbor Day? Flying Day? No? Really? Thanksgivings your favorite holiday? Why? Well?

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Speaker 1: I enjoyed the rituals of the football. I like the meal.

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Speaker 1: I like the sentiment behind it, giving thanks and being thankful.

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Speaker 1: What about presents? You get no presents on Thanksgiving? My

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Speaker 1: present is being off work for a few days and

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Speaker 1: laying around and drinking. Uh, that is the gift that

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Speaker 1: keeps on giving. That's great. I had no idea, Chucking

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Speaker 1: and fantastic. You were the first person I've ever met

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Speaker 1: whose favorite holidays Thanksgiving. That's cool, Get out more. My

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Speaker 1: collection is growing more replete. What's your favorite holiday though? Christmas? Really?

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I like Christmas too, But there's a whole,

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Speaker 1: you know, shopping thing and the greed of the companies,

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Speaker 1: it's all. It taints it a bit, in my opinion.

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Speaker 1: The greed is only it only goes as far as

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Speaker 1: you let it. You know, if you buy somebody at

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Speaker 1: present you think is appropriate and not too excessive, they're

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Speaker 1: not gonna like shove it back in your face. And

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Speaker 1: so you take this back and double what you paid

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Speaker 1: for it. Right. I just mean more along the lines

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Speaker 1: of the consumerism as a whole, I understand. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm not. I'm off my soapbox. Well let's let's get

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Speaker 1: back to Chuck's favorite holiday, Thanksgiving. And um, actually everything

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Speaker 1: you know about Thanksgiving is wrong me, everybody, everybody, most

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Speaker 1: people right, well, actually I shouldn't say most things. You know,

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Speaker 1: those elementary school pageants that. You know, a lot of

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Speaker 1: us are gonna be forced to go watch this season

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Speaker 1: sure or have seen already. Scarily enough, those are actually

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Speaker 1: fairly accurate as far as the uh, the Pilgrims and

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Speaker 1: the Native Americans sitting down together. Yeah, that is very

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Speaker 1: much the bare bones of the story, right. The wardrobe

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Speaker 1: is off. Apparently no buckles. Pilgrims didn't wear the they

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Speaker 1: don't look like the Quaker road sky or they apparently

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Speaker 1: they only wore black and white on Sunday. And the

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Speaker 1: buckles again didn't come into fashion until about fifty or

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Speaker 1: sixty years later, much later. Yeah, um, so the buckles.

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Speaker 1: You you almost never saw a um you know, the

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Speaker 1: cartoon turkeys dressed like a pilgrim. Very rarely did you

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Speaker 1: see that in North America in the seventeenth century. Um,

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Speaker 1: I've been working on that one. It gets no laughs. Ever,

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Speaker 1: you want to repeat it, we'll move on. It might

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Speaker 1: be funny at the second time. So, yeah, there was

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Speaker 1: there was a guy named Squantu, There were Puritans, settlers, ok,

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Speaker 1: the Pilgrims, and they did sit down for a feast,

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Speaker 1: and they landed on Plymouth Rock. Yeah, there was a

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Speaker 1: lot more to the story, though, all right, so you

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Speaker 1: want me to give you a little background here, Okay.

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Speaker 1: So basically the Puritans, and it wasn't just the Puritans

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Speaker 1: who settled Plymouth. Um, there was actually another group called

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Speaker 1: the Strangers who thought the Puritans were complete religious wackos. Oh. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they did not really get along very well. Um, but

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Speaker 1: they were all in it together. They called themselves the Strangers.

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Speaker 1: Uh no, I think the Puritans called them the Strangers. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: A lot of them were Catholic. Yeah. Um, so they

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Speaker 1: all they were all in it together because they were

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Speaker 1: all in deep, really really big trouble. When they landed,

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Speaker 1: it was November, so they showed up just in time

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Speaker 1: for a harsh northeastern winter. Um. And in the first

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Speaker 1: four months, forty eight of the first of the original

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Speaker 1: hundred people died. We're talking dying of exposure, of starvation,

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Speaker 1: like horrible ways to die. And the people who survived

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Speaker 1: the winner weren't much better off than the ones who died.

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Speaker 1: They still had no idea what they were doing, Like

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Speaker 1: they brought some types of grain with them that wouldn't

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Speaker 1: grow in North America. Um, I didn't know what they

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Speaker 1: were getting into it all. No, No, they wouldn't have said, hey,

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Speaker 1: let's land in Massachusetts in November. I bet it's nice exactly. Um,

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Speaker 1: So there was one big stroke of luck that would

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Speaker 1: actually prove to be enormous luck. Um. They found a

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Speaker 1: deserted um wapa noag settlement called Pawtucket. Pawtucket actually a

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Speaker 1: band in his bad word, it's um. Actually it was

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Speaker 1: deserted because pretty much the entire population had been decimated

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Speaker 1: by smallpox, which was courtesy of um English explorers and

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Speaker 1: traders who had come through and said, hey, and here's

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Speaker 1: some smallpox. So um it was. It was abandoned. It

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Speaker 1: was deserted. There's no one living there, basically just bones

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Speaker 1: laying around, but the structures were still there. So the

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Speaker 1: pilgrims move into this village. It just so happens that

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Speaker 1: a guy named Squanto had grown That was his home village,

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Speaker 1: that's where he'd grown up. But he wasn't there when

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Speaker 1: the smallpox hit, or else he would have likely died

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Speaker 1: with everybody else. He was actually in England. There was

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Speaker 1: a depending on who you ask, he was either sponsored

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Speaker 1: by an English trader and sent to England to be educated,

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Speaker 1: or he was shipped to England as a slave which

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Speaker 1: a lot of people don't know this, but the Puritans

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Speaker 1: actually helped set off the slave trade in North America

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Speaker 1: before we visited Africa. We used Native Americans as slaves,

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Speaker 1: and we shipped him back to England commonly um. Either way,

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Speaker 1: Squanto was educated in England and he'd been away from

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Speaker 1: several years. He comes home to his home village to

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Speaker 1: find a bunch of white people squatting there. But it

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Speaker 1: just so happens that the group of white people are

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Speaker 1: starving around the verge of death, and all of a sudden,

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Speaker 1: one of the handful of Native Americans who can speak

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Speaker 1: English in in on the North American continent at that time,

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Speaker 1: show up out of the wilderness and says, let me help.

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Speaker 1: That's crazy how it worked out like that, Well, you

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Speaker 1: can imagine the Puritans viewed this as they viewed Squanto

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Speaker 1: as being sent by God, which actually ended up justifying

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Speaker 1: centuries of you know, genocide and all that, um, because

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Speaker 1: we were meant to be here clearly, And you kind

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Speaker 1: of have to wonder that if um Squanto had been

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Speaker 1: given a flash of the future, would he have helped

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Speaker 1: you know, I mean, sure we have internet and mental cigarettes,

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Speaker 1: but at what cost? You know, it makes you wonder

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Speaker 1: if he would have just kind of walked away back

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Speaker 1: into the woods like good luck, those fifty may have

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Speaker 1: died and uh changed the course of you know, American

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Speaker 1: history for revocably. Yeah. So, um he helps him. He

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Speaker 1: basically teaches the Puritans how to survive in North America,

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Speaker 1: how to farm, what to grow get corn, corn big

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Speaker 1: one huge, which we both know is enormous. And um,

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Speaker 1: let's see how to hunt deer, how to harvest shellfish, um,

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Speaker 1: and that from maple trees. So he he, he saves

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Speaker 1: this group of people. And UM it is true that

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Speaker 1: out of respect for his help, and by this time

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Speaker 1: Squanto had been adopted by or absorbed into a nearby

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Speaker 1: Wapanoag tribe. UM, so out of gratitude, they invited Squanto

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Speaker 1: and his family for a celebratory feast, which was the

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Speaker 1: first Thanksgiving exactly. And that's the one that you'll see

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Speaker 1: in elementary schools around the country this November. And UH

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Speaker 1: historians think that um it actually did take place in

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Speaker 1: the fall, so that that much is on part. It's

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Speaker 1: not probably not what in the fourth Thursday and Thanksgiving.

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Speaker 1: And I doubt if they watched the New football or

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Speaker 1: maybe they did sports were involved. Yeah, uh, and they

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Speaker 1: said they probably based the the dinner on the Native

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Speaker 1: American meal plan, which I did a little research into that.

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Speaker 1: And if you want to honor your our Native American

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Speaker 1: friends here and this Thanksgiving, then you can sit down

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Speaker 1: and have a traditional Native American meal of a bean soups,

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Speaker 1: fried mash nice not quite sure what that is. I think, uh,

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Speaker 1: smushed corn with public milk, and it sounds good. You

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Speaker 1: can roast yourself a rabbit and uh chow down on

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Speaker 1: some mutton stew and a little sheep's head and I

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Speaker 1: would eat all that. I would try. Sheep's head I

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Speaker 1: never have, but I would happily eat all the rest

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Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, and that that would be a traditional

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Speaker 1: or you know those foods are traditional Native American foods. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there was, there's one. And and like Chuck said, the

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Speaker 1: this this much more, this first Thanksgiving much more followed

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Speaker 1: the Native Americans tradition of Thanksgiving. Um. Had it followed

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Speaker 1: the Puritans version of Thanksgiving, there would have been a

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Speaker 1: lot of um praying and not dancing and basically just

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Speaker 1: standing around being very solemn um. And the Puritans had

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Speaker 1: days of Thanksgiving like crazy. Um, the Native Americans in

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Speaker 1: the northeast, the Algonquin speaking people's they celebrated six times

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Speaker 1: a year, and one of them was the harvest, which

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Speaker 1: is actually found world round. Yeah, the bunch of ancient

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Speaker 1: cultures and recent cultures celebrated harvest Thanksgiving. Yeah, so um,

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Speaker 1: that's that's actually kind of what we do today. We

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Speaker 1: still kind of celebrated a little more like the the

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Speaker 1: Indian version than the Puritan version. So um, that's the

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Speaker 1: story of the First Thanksgiving and basically it led to

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Speaker 1: I've read I've read analysis on it, and people speculate

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Speaker 1: that the Puritans were grateful, but at the same time

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Speaker 1: they did see Squanto sent by God like he had

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Speaker 1: no choice in it. And ultimately they were kind of

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Speaker 1: getting along because they were about the only English in

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Speaker 1: the area and that they were vastly outnumbered by the

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Speaker 1: Native Americans. Well, within twenty years, the children of both

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Speaker 1: of these groups who were seated at the First Thanksgiving

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Speaker 1: dinner were murdering one another in King Philip's War, And

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Speaker 1: that was the beginning of that. Right, So let's flash

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Speaker 1: forward a little bit show to the official Thanksgivings. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the way we recognize that right, Well, if you're talking

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Speaker 1: about officially recognized George Washington started at, Yeah, that's the

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Speaker 1: sporadic Thanksgiving celebrations that marked actually, sadly, a lot of

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Speaker 1: them marked um victories over Native trial vibes. Um, and

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Speaker 1: considering how things got started, it's that's quite a kick

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Speaker 1: in the face. Yeah. Ultimately, if you are descended from

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Speaker 1: a immigrant from the East, specifically European immigrant, and you're

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Speaker 1: here in the US and you celebrate Thanksgiving, sadly, what

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Speaker 1: you're really giving thanks for is being on the winning side.

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Speaker 1: You know. Um, the Native Americans don't necessarily take thanks

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Speaker 1: Giving the same way that people of Anglo descent or

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Speaker 1: European descent in general do. Um. There's actually a day

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Speaker 1: of morning that they celebrate near Plymouth. Yes, just to

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Speaker 1: drive the point home. Yeah, they didn't land on Plymouth Rock.

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Speaker 1: Plymouth Rock landed on them, right, that's the saying. So. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but our modern version of Thanksgiving actually comes from a

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Speaker 1: magazine editor. Right now, Chuck was saying, George Washington, he said,

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Speaker 1: let's just consolidate all these Thanksgiving days into one. It

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Speaker 1: didn't really take off, though, but he was the he

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Speaker 1: was the first one to say it. A magazine editor

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Speaker 1: named Sarah hale Um started this to writing campaign. Now,

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Speaker 1: she had actually come across the two surviving documents that

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Speaker 1: described the first Thanksgiving, so she got some of it's

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Speaker 1: pretty cool, um, but she really romanticized it and embellished it, um,

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Speaker 1: and gave us what we think of when we think

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Speaker 1: of Thanksgiving today, you know, and what the little kids

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Speaker 1: in elementary school are putting on It all basically came

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Speaker 1: from this magazine editor's imagination. Um. Take pumpkin pies for example,

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Speaker 1: I love too, I love pumpkin pie. I do too,

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Speaker 1: and I'm grateful that they're part of the Thanksgiving and

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Speaker 1: I'm thankful for it. Um. But did you know that

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Speaker 1: there was literally impossible that pumpkin pies were part of

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Speaker 1: the first Thanksgiving. Do you wanna know why? My guess

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Speaker 1: would be that there were no pumpkins. There were pumpkins,

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Speaker 1: pumpkins are kind of squashed, and there was no native

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Speaker 1: to North America. There was pie, but Europeans knew how

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Speaker 1: to make pie, So what's the problem. Not They probably

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Speaker 1: didn't have the flour, they probably didn't have the milk.

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Speaker 1: Even if they did, Still, a year after they'd been there,

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Speaker 1: the pilar him his head and managed to build a

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Speaker 1: functioning oven yet, right, so it's literally impossible that they

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Speaker 1: had pies. And I know they didn't have the cool

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Speaker 1: whip to doll up on top. Definitely not oil or cream, right, yeah, cream,

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Speaker 1: that's my that's my vote. Agreed. So Lincoln ratifies UH

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Speaker 1: and makes it the really official every day he I

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Speaker 1: think he made it the last day of I think

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Speaker 1: he made it the last day of November. But it

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Speaker 1: was from Sarah Hale, from Sarah Hale's letter writing campaign.

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Speaker 1: And then the Thursday thing came along. I think Franklin

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Speaker 1: Roosevelt moved it up a week and I love this part.

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Speaker 1: He They actually started calling it Frank's Giving. It's just

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Speaker 1: to kind of chide him a little bit because he

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Speaker 1: changed it up. Yeah, why did he UH? For Christmas shopping?

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Speaker 1: And he did it because the big national retailers were

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Speaker 1: lobbying him to extend the Christmas shopping season, right, I did.

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Speaker 1: Should we talk about turkey? Let's talk, yes about about turkey.

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Speaker 1: I know you refused to say talk turkey. I love it.

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Speaker 1: Turkey was not a part of Thanksgiving. Initially they pretty

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Speaker 1: much said that, correct, It was most likely venison or

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Speaker 1: some other sort of foul. One there another, there was foul.

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Speaker 1: And actually, at the time, if you talked to a

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Speaker 1: Puritan about turkey, they would have that that actually characterized

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Speaker 1: any kind of foul. So even if they did use

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Speaker 1: the word turkey, which they didn't, it could mean anything.

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Speaker 1: But there probably were like ducks and geese on the table.

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Speaker 1: And we know there was also cranberry too. Yeah, which

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Speaker 1: is one thing that still holds true today, which is

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Speaker 1: nice to go ahead with the turkey, Chuck, Well, Turkey

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Speaker 1: was not a part back then, but it very much

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Speaker 1: is now of Americans now eat Thanksgiving on turkey, and

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Speaker 1: I would imagine the tim person who don't. A lot

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Speaker 1: of those are probably vegetarian. I can't imagine you would

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Speaker 1: choose another meat if you're not a vegetarian other than turkey,

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Speaker 1: So you have to be some sort of communists. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: if we have listeners out there who do who are

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Speaker 1: not vegetarian and who opt for steak on Thanksgiving, I'd

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Speaker 1: love to hear from you. Yes, I'd be very cool.

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Speaker 1: But to furkey is what the vegetarians I prefer because

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Speaker 1: they like to keep it real, keep it traditions. Anyone

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Speaker 1: really prefer to furkey or is it done out of

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Speaker 1: some sort of obligation? Do you think uh? Like I said,

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Speaker 1: I think it's trying to keep up with the tradition

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Speaker 1: while still maintaining the ethics that the vegetarians hold understood,

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Speaker 1: that's my that's my guess, understand, And I think we

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Speaker 1: shoul talking about football. Wait, hold on, I got more

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Speaker 1: on turkey. Okay. First of all, we're expected to be

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Speaker 1: forty six million turkeys this year for Thanksgiving, Alan wowellion pounds.

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Speaker 1: It's a lot of turkey. And while we're still on

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Speaker 1: the topic of turkey, can I tell you one more thing?

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Speaker 1: All right? So you know how a trip to fan

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Speaker 1: makes you sleepy? Yes, that's not the case. Trip to

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Speaker 1: fan that you should explain as a chemical in turkey? Correct,

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Speaker 1: that supposedly makes you sleepy, and actually it does encourage

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Speaker 1: the production of saratonin, which is a calming agent on

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Speaker 1: the nervous system. The problem is this trip to fan

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Speaker 1: is effective pretty much only on an empty stomach. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So they said, well, what is it about the turkey

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Speaker 1: that makes you sleepy? It's not the turkey a loan,

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Speaker 1: it's actually the meal, right, Okay, The average thing giving

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Speaker 1: the serving. This isn't like the whole spread. This is

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Speaker 1: what you or I are going to sit down and eat.

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Speaker 1: The average meal has three thousand calories and two nine

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Speaker 1: grams of fat. Wow, I looked it up, my friend.

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Speaker 1: That's the equivalent of six big Max. I was gonna say,

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Speaker 1: I bet you're gonna put it in big Mac terms.

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Speaker 1: I knew that was coming back. Is like, it should

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Speaker 1: be a standard measure seven six six. Yeah, it's actually

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Speaker 1: calorie wise, it's about five big Max. Fat gram wise,

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Speaker 1: it's about six big mas. Um. That would make me

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Speaker 1: sleepy if I ate six big macs exactly. The digestion chuck.

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Speaker 1: You and I we know and love the fight or

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Speaker 1: flight response, right. Do you remember when when when you're

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Speaker 1: faced with danger, digestion stops and everything Well, this is

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Speaker 1: the exact opposite. Everything else slows down, so your stomach

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Speaker 1: can be like, oh, I have to get rid of

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Speaker 1: this because it's a carved, heavy meal. And actually with that,

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Speaker 1: with three thousand calories and two and twenty nine fat grams,

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Speaker 1: we would have to run in a moderate pace for

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Speaker 1: four straight hours to burn that off. And we don't

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Speaker 1: do that, you know, we don't instead, as Chuck was saying,

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Speaker 1: watch football. Yes, even people who don't like football. Many

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Speaker 1: times we'll watch football on Thanksgiving for the tradition of it.

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Speaker 1: I love football, I love the NFL. I love the

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Speaker 1: Atlanta Falcons. I'll just go ahead and say that I'm

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Speaker 1: more college football guy myself. But yes, I know that's fine.

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Speaker 1: I like that too. But yeah, that's started. In UH four,

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Speaker 1: the Detroit Lions played the Chicago Bears and lost in

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Speaker 1: and but they lost. It was the lions first year.

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Speaker 1: The Bears were the national champs, and they only lost

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Speaker 1: thirteen to sixteen, So pretty good showing for a first

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Speaker 1: year club, right, they only lost by three points, and

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Speaker 1: uh save seven years from thirty to forty four they

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Speaker 1: did not play football, And I believe it probably something

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Speaker 1: to do with World War two. I didn't look it up. Yeah, probably,

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Speaker 1: but I doubt if that's coincidence. You know. I have

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Speaker 1: a theory about the Lions. Actually, I think that they

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Speaker 1: can never pull together a truly decent team because there's

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Speaker 1: so many players out there don't want to play on

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Speaker 1: Thanksgiving and don't want to play on Christmas. The Lions

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Speaker 1: have to play on both days almost every year. Robbing

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Speaker 1: their families of fun. Uh. And the Cowboys are the

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Speaker 1: other team that aditionally plays and they started at that

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Speaker 1: tradition in nine six. They were Johnny Come Lately, Johnny

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Speaker 1: Come Lately, and UH. A couple of more things here.

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Speaker 1: The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is is I don't I

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Speaker 1: don't watch it, which is, UM, I'm just not a

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Speaker 1: big parade guy. But if you're ever in New York City,

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Speaker 1: here's a little tip around Thanksgiving. One thing that's really

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Speaker 1: fun to do. My wife and I did it one

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Speaker 1: year is to go the day before the Thanksgiving Day

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Speaker 1: parade and watch the the balloons being blown up. You

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Speaker 1: just walk around Central Park. They're out there, got the

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Speaker 1: streets closed down, they're blowing up. You know, you see

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Speaker 1: kermit on the ground. They're blowing them up, and there's

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Speaker 1: just kids everywhere and parents everywhere, and uh, it's a delight.

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Speaker 1: And it's not just the mob scene of the actual parade.

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Speaker 1: I think it's a lot more fun. And that's Chuck's

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Speaker 1: recommendation for New York City. Yeah, and I've learned over

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Speaker 1: time that, um, following Chuck around can yield some pretty

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Speaker 1: cool adventures. You could see Thanksgiving Day parade, balloons being

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Speaker 1: blown up. You might run into Tony Shalub. You could

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Speaker 1: find a severed head in a bucket. There's all sorts

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Speaker 1: of crazy stuff that happens. Been showing. I sound much

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Speaker 1: more interesting when I start naming these things out loud. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so chucky, You got anything else? Uh No, that's it,

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Speaker 1: It's my favorite. I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving

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Speaker 1: this year. Yeah, Happy Thanksgiving. Remember with the stuff turkey,

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Speaker 1: that's twenty two to twenty four minutes per pound at

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Speaker 1: three right, if you don't go to the trouble of

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Speaker 1: stuff in your your turkey, just knock that down to

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Speaker 1: eighteen to twenty minutes per pound at the same temperature.

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Speaker 1: Or you could just forego all that and sit down

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Speaker 1: to a plate of six big max. Yeah, same result, right, exactly. Well,

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Speaker 1: until then, Happy Thanksgiving, and remember the reason for this

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Speaker 1: season as to give thanks for things you have in

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Speaker 1: your life. Now it's a busy day. There's football, there's food,

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Speaker 1: there's fun. Take a short time reflect on things, and

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Speaker 1: don't forget about the vanquished. For more on this and

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Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com?

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Speaker 1: Let us know what you think, Send an email to

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Speaker 1: podcast at how stuff works dot com. Brought to you

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