While we will celebrate with our traditional Thanksgiving feast tomorrow, you need to know that Thanksgiving did not become an annual feast until 1863. It became an official federal holiday in 1941.

According to Wikipedia:

The First Thanksgiving was celebrated to give thanks to God for helping the pilgrims survive the brutal winter. The first Thanksgiving feast lasted three days providing enough food for 53 pilgrims and 90 Indians. The traditional Thanksgiving menu often features turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie. Americans may eat these foods on modern day Thanksgiving, but the first feast did not consist of these items. On the first feast turkey was any type of fowl that the pilgrims hunted. Pumpkin pie wasn’t on the menu because there were no ovens for baking, but they did have boiled pumpkin. Cranberries weren’t introduced at this time. Due to the diminishing supply of flour there was no bread of any kind. The foods included in the first feast included duck, geese, venison, fish, lobster, clams, swan, berries, dried fruit, pumpkin, squash, and many more vegetables.

Eat up!