The past 150 years, Thanksgiving feasts in the White House have been sumptuous affairs. The first official Thanksgiving feast was presided over by Abraham Lincoln after he declared Thanksgiving to be a national holiday in 1863.
To give you a small glimpse of the presidential table, here is a roast turkey recipe from the most popular cookbook of the time, “Directions For Cookery In Its Various Branches” by Miss Leslie. I’ve added the parenthesis for explanation.
TO ROAST A TURKEY. MAKE a force-meat (stuffing) of grated bread-crumbs, minced suet (fat from cattle and sheep), sweet marjoram, grated lemon-peel, nutmeg, pepper, salt, and beaten yolk of egg. You may add some grated cold ham or sausage.
Light some writing paper, and singe the hairs from the skin of the turkey. Reserve the neck, liver, and gizzard for the gravy.
Stuff the craw of the turkey with the force-meat, of which there should be enough made to form into balls for frying, laying them round the turkey when it is dished.
Dredge it with flour, and roast it before a clear brisk fire, basting it with cold lard (rendered pig fat). Towards the last, set the turkey nearer to the fire, dredge it again very lightly with flour, and baste it with butter. It will require, according to its size, from two to three hours roasting. (The turkey was roasted in a cast iron pan beside an open hearth fire).
Make the gravy of the giblets cut in pieces, seasoned, and stewed for two hours in a very little water. Thicken it with a spoonful of browned flour, and stir into it the gravy from tho dripping-pan, having first skimmed off the fat.
If one preferred to serve the turkey cold, Miss Leslie encouraged covering the cold turkey with lumps of currant jelly or with strips of bacon sewn into the turkey skin.
Miss Leslie also strongly recommended that the roast turkey be accompanied with ham or tongue, served with mushroom sauce, and eaten with stewed cranberries. She also noted that it was inappropriate to eat the turkey legs.
Before Abraham Lincoln sat down to enjoy his turkey, he declared Thanksgiving a national holiday and implored all Americans to thank God for the blessings He had given the United States.
Lincoln said, “The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come…
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People.
I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.
And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.”
Lincoln’s Thanksgiving declaration can be found at www.archives.gov.
When Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday, it wasn’t to gather the nation around a feast or football game. It was to set aside a day to thank God for his grace, mercy, and blessings.
Before you carve the turkey or pass the cranberry sauce this Thanksgiving, take time to follow Lincoln’s advice.
