To kick it Pilgrim style this Thanksgiving, don’t use your fork, eat your dessert during dinner and ask for some eel and venison in addition to the turkey on the table.

And say “Massasoit” and “Wampanoag” with authority.

Thanksgiving means a lot — and a lot of different things — to Houstonians. It generally means food, family, football, and travel. It means we get the opportunity to watch the President, the most dominant figure in our political system, pardon a bird. It also means the familiar images of buckle-booted Pilgrims dining with Native Americans return.

Yet for me, Thanksgiving is an opportunity to inject a little history into the dinner table conversation.

I find great utility in adding a dash of history to the Thanksgiving Day celebration. It can not only correct some of the cringe-inducing misunderstandings about American history, but it can help you steer the dinner table conversation away from any potential family debate about health care reform.

Clarifying the history of that legendary “first” Thanksgiving of 1621, however, to an audience that will most likely have one eye on the football game and another eye on the dessert, takes some skill.

Much like being a spectator at the downtown Houston parade on Thanksgiving Day, you’ll have to pick your spots.

So here are some points of interest you can bring to the table to add a little culture to your conversation.

What did they eat at that Thanksgiving feast?

When the mashed potatoes are passed in your direction, you’ll have another opportunity to note what was actually served. They probably didn’t have white potatoes for starters.

It may be easier to note what the Pilgrims didn’t eat. They probably didn’t have pumpkin pie, pecan pie, or apple pie.

House of Pies this was not.

Cranberries were most likely not there either. Awful, I know. Pumpkin was probably on the table, in some form or fashion, but not in a baked crust.

Historians are quite sure Indian corn was there and in abundant fashion. Likewise, while there was quite a bit of “fowl” at the dinner. Yet there are conflicting accounts as to whether or not turkey was on the menu. There was venison, brought by the Wampanoag Indians. And there were an assortment of other items, including stews of meats and vegetables.

They also ate what you would expect people from the Cape Cod area to eat—cod, lobster, eel, and mussels.

In what manner did they eat the food?

There probably wasn’t much of a formal spread for the dinner itself in 1621. So as you admire the fine table setting presented by your host, you can point out that the Pilgrims probably ate on the ground. They also ate without forks. And they ate dessert with dinner. That’ll go over big at the kids’ table.

When did this 1621 Thanksgiving actually take place?

The Pilgrims had their Thanksgiving with the Wampanoag Indians, and their leader Massassoit, sometime between late September and early October. It was a three-day event with some one hundred Wampanoags and close to 50 Pilgrims. There also seems to be a consensus that this was a harvest celebration, rather than a religious event. It was full of food, fun, and games.

So why November?

Abraham Lincoln, C-Span’s #1 ranked President, proclaimed the last Thursday in November to be a national day of Thanksgiving in October 1863. Prior to the proclamation, Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, petitioned Lincoln to make Thanksgiving a fixed date. She hoped such a day would help bring a greater sense of national unity to a country fractured by three bloody years of civil war.

Hale, by the way, wrote the poem “Mary Had a Little Lamb."