Who doesn’t enjoy a beautifully set table at Thanksgiving? While the food at every meal, and especially at festive occasions attended by friends and family, should always be wholesome and tasty, the eyes are also hungry, and we often forget to feed the eyes. A thing of beauty helps to relieve the tedium of every day life, and so we should always endeavor at every meal to serve a feast for the eyes, the soul and the mind, and not merely the ravenous belly.
When preparing a Thanksgiving meal, even though you may be an American, please keep in mind that the first Thanksgiving was celebrated by Englishmen and women, people stranded far away from their homeland, who strove to make familiar looking food stuffs out of the strange and frightening harvest provided by the wilderness and the aboriginal peoples who befriended them. And as the tradition of that first Thanksgiving was reenacted year after year, century after century, the uniquely American tradition continued to have a suspiciously familiar English subtext.
If you have ever been an immigrant, then you know what it is to be a stranger in a strange new land. Keep this in mind when planning your next Thanksgiving and opt for an English theme. The colonists, after all, were English, and they were terribly homesick.
Food historian Ivan Day has come up with some very interesting ideas for table settings and festive meals, based on the works of Englishwoman Mrs. Elizabeth Raffald, an 18th century writer. Watch the video below to see some stunning period pieces that may inspire. While the period is that of the American revolution and not the early colonization, your guests will probably not appreciate the difference. They will be so charmed by the amazing eye candy!
How can you learn more about creating a beautiful Thanksgiving table? Try reading the works of Ivan Day and Elizabeth Raffald.
Copyright 2011 Medora Trevilian
