Thursday, October 15, 2009

Thanksgiving Ephiphany

After 30 years of living on this planet, I think I finally get Thanksgiving. Not the part of being thankful... sure, that makes logical sense. But the timing and the big meal part. This little gem of insight was all thanks to my balcony garden.

There was a Risk Of Frost warning on the radio earlier this week. So I dutifully harvested all of my vegetables that night. If I didn't, there was the chance that the frost would kill the plants and I would have nothing to eat.

So I now I'm looking at a table full of freshly harvested vegetables, wondering how I'm going to eat all of it before it goes bad. Hmm, maybe I should prepare a big meal of some sort. Maybe invite lots of people, like a feast.

A-ha. The Thanksgiving feast. It's all about frost. Historically, Thanksgiving dinner was the freshest meal one would eat until the following spring. And because frost hits Canada before America, Canadians have Thanksgiving several weeks before Americans.

Let me savour this moment of ingenuity before you tell me you already knew that.

4 comments:

troy said...

maybe it also explains why we don't have it in australia :)

Minda said...

O yea! Aussies must have in-season produce all-year round. Except maybe when it's way too hot/dry for anything to grow?

Sheldon said...

Interesting...where did that invite end up...? ^_^;

Minda said...

Haha... actually there was no feast. The greens cooked down so much, the 2 of us ate them over only 2 dinners.