Last night, I got invited to a lecture at the almost-ready-to-open Astor Center by Andrew F. Smith, the editor of the recently published The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink, about the origins of America’s Thanksgiving myth. Suffice to say that just about everything we know is wrong. And this is a terrible photograph from my cell phone, but it reflects a more historically accurate picture. That’s venison with a side of pottage (barley, hominy, and squash), and then a vegetable I didn’t quite identify because I went back for a second glass of sparkling cider when Smith got to that part of the plate. Another food historian in the room—the audience included Marion Nestle and Jeffrey Steingarten—had argued for applejack as more authentic, but Smith pointed out that one glass of that and we wouldn’t make it through the lecture…or the excellent Madeira (also historically proper!) afterwards.
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