Holiday meals

What did our ancestors eat for holiday meals? I wonder if they had some of the memorable experiences we have during attempts to create holiday meals.

None of the family recipes we have are older than our grandparents. My wife just made some really nice looking aprons for her sisters that included some of her grandmother's recipe cards. I can remember her serving Red Velvet Cake every year.

Reading old wills and census records give some idea of what ancestors owned and some of them included food. I have seen bushels of corn, sweet potatoes, goats or head of cattle listed both as assets and bequeaths.

I would guess since most of what we eat for holidays includes locally grown food or at least something that could have been locally grown if we were more diligent in supporting the local farms, the meals would be like ours.

They would have probably served Turkey for Thanksgiving and would have had experiences like we did in our first family Thanksgiving when someone forgot to turn on the oven.

I am sure being in the South they would have had Pecan pie but hopefully not like my Uncle Gary's when he forgot to put in the eggs and sugar and it just had a layer of Karo Syrup with pecans on top.

My grandfather Green grew sweet potatoes in his back yard so I am sure he ate them. He never went to college but I am sure he knew you had to cook them before you tried to mash them, a lesson my niece Rachel learned too late this year.

No, our ancestors may not have had microwaves and shiny blue convection ovens but the end result was probably pretty close to what many of us will share today.