A Very English Thanksgiving
For those of you unaware, Thanksgiving isn’t celebrated here. Yeah, yeah, it’s a complete shocker. However, this being only the second Thanksgiving I’ve celebrated without my family, I wanted to do something other than work. Since part of this holiday has always been a little about excessive eating, I wanted a place that would mimic that well. I managed to wrangle up a few other coworkers and set about trying to get a booking at some place that would fit the needs of a Thanksgiving meal. I’d previously been to a pub somewhat near my flat which seemed to fit the bill called the Marquess Tavern. It has plenty of interesting beers, but the more important part was the choice of beef. To order it, you select a weights of beef from a chalkboard:
You pick the weight you want and it comes out freshly cut from the bone along with some green vegetables, potatoes, gravy and yorkshire pudding. We picked #1 and #6 which meant we ordered 5.5lbs of beef. Half of that (it came out on two plates) would look like this:
Tasty food! We managed to finish it all and felt good and full afterwards :). For those of you interested, here would be my companions for this years Thanksgiving:
On the left are Bhavin and Christiaan and on the right are Ben and Hang. It was a very international little group. We ate, imbibed and generally had a jolly old time.
The interior is very nice as well.
Anyhoo, there was no turkey or family, but it was a fun time. I’m hoping to try to get as many people as possible together sometime next year (yikes! that’s pretty close) and see how many of the choices of meat we can knock off the chalkboard.
November 24th, 2007 at 10:32 am
Thanksgiving is celebrated in England. Not with a holiday, and not at the same time as Americans do. We call it ‘Harvest Festival’ and it’s celebrated on the Sunday closest to the Harvest Moon. This moon is associated with the autumn equinox which can fall anytime between late September and early October. We don’t have the commerciality about it that you guys do.
Typically, the community gives food to the church, which is tastefully displayed within the Church. After lots of singing and praying in the church, the food is blessed and given to those less fortunate than ourselves. Primary school children are actively involved with donating food through their schools, particularly in rural areas (meaning, unless you are a regular church goer, it might pass you by. Let’s not deny it!).
It’s pretty certain that your founding fathers took the Harvest Festival tradition to America, where it subsequently became ‘Thanksgiving’ in all its new world forms. I must say, I love the sentiments behind your thanksgiving celebration. I just wonder if the meaning has been lost in the commercialism. Bit like Christmas really I suppose.
Love your blog