Thanksgiving break is Nov. 20 to Nov.24. Thanksgiving is a holiday where different types of people gather around a feast and recognize what they are thankful for. This holiday originated from a feast in 1621 shared by the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag people. Their feast consisted of deer, fowl, fish, lobster, mussels, corn, squash, and different types of wild game. Now our feast is a little different. A traditional thanksgiving feast for us now consists of a roasted turkey or ham, turkey stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, corn, dinner rolls, cranberry sauce, apple pie and pumpkin pie. But what are Elkins High School student’s favorite out of those?
#5- Ham
Ham is a type of food that gains popularity for Thanksgiving each year. Ham has been used to replace a turkey for smaller families who won’t eat a whole turkey. Has is also used as a side dish by many Americans.
#4- Pumpkin Pie
Pumpkin pie is a classic Thanksgiving food. Pumpkins were brought as gifts from the Native Americans to the first settlers where they taught them all the pumpkins could be used for. Which led to pumpkin pie being served at the first Thanksgiving in America about 50 years after the first Thanksgiving.
#3- Turkey Stuffing
Turkey Stuffing is breadcrumbs mixed with onions, celery, and several spices and herbs. Stuffing is used to help flavor the turkey while making a side dish. Back during the First Thanksgiving meat was being cooked over an open fire so stuffing didn’t become a thing until 1836.
#2- Turkey
Turkey is a Thanksgiving classic and it’s no wonder that it’s in the high school students top 5. We can assume that turkey was served at the first Thanksgiving, but there was another reason why the turkey was seen as a good fit for Thanksgiving feasts. This was the fact that wild turkeys were native to North America making them a natural choice to be served during Thanksgiving.
#1- Mashed Potatoes and Gravy
Something that was not expected to be voted number one from the students, mashed potatoes. Mashed potatoes are a side dish that consists of potatoes being mashed together and mixed with milk, butter, salt, and pepper. Mashed potatoes are a very simple side dish to make and can be fixed to however you like it.
This list is the top five choices from the Elkins High School students. Even while talking about the food we need to remember that Thanksgiving is way more than the food we eat. It is for the time we spend without family and friends, and for taking a day to appreciate what we have in our life. Some days can be tough but Thanksgiving is a day for us all to shut out everything bad going on and focus on how lucky we are to have each other.
