Thanksgiving Dinner

Hello everyone and welcome to EnglishPod. My name is Marco.

My name is Catherine and today we're celebrating a very important and very special American holiday.

That's right. Today we are celebrating and talking about Thanksgiving, a very, as you say, traditional and big holiday in the United States.

That's right. So this year it's on November 25th. It's always on a Thursday.

Let's check out our dialogue to hear about what happens at this special dinner and why this is a holiday and then we'll be back to talk about it in just a moment.

So, what are you doing for Thanksgiving?

Not much really. It's more of an American tradition. So back home we don't really celebrate it.

In fact, I'm not even sure of what exactly is being celebrated.

You know, it's a time to get together with all your family and be thankful for everything.

Yeah, but how did this holiday come to be?

Well, the first settlers of Massachusetts arrived there because of religious persecution from England and King James.

Once in the New World, they befriended a native named Squanto who taught them how to harvest food from the area such as corn.

And then what happened?

Well, they had enough harvest for the next winter and in celebration they decided to have a big feast with the natives,

giving thanks to the land and everyone for their food, health and new lives.

Interesting. I am amazed how big and delicious Thanksgiving dinners are.

Come to my house for Thanksgiving. We're having turkey, pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes with gravy and lots of stuffing.

Count me in!

All right, we're back. So a very interesting holiday.

We learned a little bit about why it's celebrated, how it came to be.

So let's take a look at some of those words now on Language Takeaway.

Language Takeaway

The first word we have for you guys today on Language Takeaway is settler.

Now, a settler is a person. What kind of a person is a settler?

Basically, it's a person that goes to a place to settle down there or to settle there and that basically means to live there, to stay there permanently.

All right, but the idea with a settler is that he or she will start to build something, build a house, build a city, build a town.

So settlers go to places where there aren't very many people.

That's right. Kind of hard to be a settler now.

But yeah, back then, obviously, there were so many places that were undiscovered or didn't have people and they would settle there.

And the place where they went in the United States is called Massachusetts.

Massachusetts. Now, this is a very long, very hard to pronounce word and I believe it comes from a local Indian language.

But Massachusetts, if you break it down, Massachusetts is a state.

And you might have heard of the biggest city in Massachusetts, which is Boston.

So Boston, Massachusetts. But this is where the settlers first came when they came to America.

That's right. So I think if you go to Boston, it has kind of this atmosphere of the settlers and how this old little touch to it of how it used to be.

Right. There is an old feel to Boston because unlike most places in America, Boston has been a city for over 400 years, almost 500 years.

So it's much different from places like California or Texas.

That's right. OK. So the settlers arrived to Massachusetts and they went there because of religious persecution from England and King James.

OK. So the key here is persecution. This is something that you do to someone else or this is something a government does to someone else.

Basically, to persecute someone is to is to limit them or to attack them or to to prevent them from doing things that they want to do.

That's right. So basically, that is the reason why they left England, because the king was persecuting them.

They didn't let them be have their own religion. Right.

They had this religion and the king did not approve of the religion and they felt like people were critical of them or attacking them or preventing them from practicing this religion.

And so their religious persecution in England pushed them to this place, the New World.

So that's our next word. Right. That's right. The New World. And this is what they used to call the continent of United States or North America.

They used to call it the New World. All right. So New World, Old World.

So if we think of Europe as being the old world, America, like you're saying, Latin America, North America, these are part of the New World.

So it's almost like they had never been discovered before. Right. So, yeah, basically everyone was concentrated in Europe at that time.

And then when they went to the West, they went to the New World. And obviously, when they arrived, it wasn't empty.

They had people there. And we say that they are the natives of that land.

OK, so a native of some place is someone who comes from there originally. All right.

So if I came to America in 1500, there were Native American Indians who were living there.

And so they're the natives of this place. Now, can you use that nowadays? Can you say I am a native of Italy?

I'm a native of Italy. I'm a native of Chicago. Yes, you can.

It's a little bit, you know, it's a little bit less common than saying I'm from Chicago or I'm from Italy, but it's also correct.

OK, but in this case, we're talking about the natives as the people who were already there.

Yes, Native American Indians. Like Squanto. Like Squanto. That's the name of that Native American Indian who was there.

And this native named Squanto taught them how to harvest food from the area such as corn.

So this is the interesting part of the story. It is. Basically, these two groups worked together.

You have Native American Indians and settlers, and they worked together to make a meal and to survive, basically.

And to harvest food, to harvest, the key here is that it's a verb. It's something you do to crops or like corn or potatoes.

And you take them out from the field and you bring them home.

Right. So in this case, the corn is growing out of the land. And if you go out and cut it down and take it, you are harvesting corn.

You are you're picking it, collecting it.

Exactly. And so they harvested the food and they have a very big meal.

So we do want to talk about the special meal here that features all of this harvested food.

Let's take a look at some of those words in Language Takeaway Part 2.

All right. So talking about the foods. Now, obviously, the tradition is that you have this big meal together.

And the one thing that is, I think, a given is that you have a big turkey.

That's right. So a turkey is a bird. They make very funny sounds, don't they?

Right. Like gobble, gobble, gobble.

But they they're very big. They run around and they have this red part under their neck and beaks and everything.

So it's a very commonly eaten food for Thanksgiving. But people can eat it anytime.

Yeah. This is a weird thing. I usually don't see turkey too much, if not during Thanksgiving.

Like I don't see somebody like a restaurant offering turkey.

No, you don't. But you do see it in delis like a roast turkey sandwich.

Yes, this is true.

Because turkey is very healthy.

OK. So we have turkey. We also have pumpkin pie. So pumpkin pie.

Pumpkin pie. This is a classic. You've heard of apple pie.

But pumpkin pie is a baked dessert that is filled with some pumpkin filling.

So as you know, pumpkin or may know pumpkin is a big...

It's a gourd.

It's a gourd.

Yeah. I think it's kind of vegetable.

Kind of like a vegetable. It's big and orange. And basically this is a... It's kind of sweet, right? The insides.

It is. It's a little bit sweet. It's big, orange and round, like you say.

People often start to harvest them around October. I'd say.

Some people like to eat the seeds. But you can also scoop out with your spoon.

You can take out some of the meat, some of the filling.

And that's what we use to create this pumpkin pie.

Very good. So pumpkin pie. Delicious food.

Now we also have a typical mashed potatoes with gravy.

All right. I love mashed potatoes. Mashed means to squish or to break down or to push down.

And so mashed potatoes, you have a normal potato and you mix up all the potatoes together.

So it's kind of like soft and creamy.

Yeah. It almost becomes like a paste or almost like, let's say, like ice cream, but not cold.

Not cold and not sweet. But yeah, that's the consistency. That's what it feels like.

And so when we eat potatoes like this, in America, we often like to eat it with a sauce.

And the sauce that we eat with mashed potatoes is called gravy.

Gravy. And now gravy is usually made out of what?

Gravy is made from... Well, you can make different kinds of gravy.

But the way that we make it at my house is we take all of the juice from the turkey.

Because when you bake a turkey in the oven, on the bottom of the pan you'll get some liquid, some water, some fat.

And you use that to make a gravy. So it's brown and it's very salty and delicious.

Awesome. Sounds delicious. And to end things, we have stuffing.

Now this stuffing goes inside the turkey, right? But then you take it out.

That's right. So stuffing, we talk about stuffing in general as being something that you put inside something else.

So if I have a stuffed animal, he has some cotton inside or whatever.

But if you have a turkey, you take out all of the organs, the heart, the liver.

You take those parts out because we don't eat those.

And you put some bread, onions and vegetables inside the turkey to cook.

And then you take it out and you eat it. So it tastes a bit like turkey and meat, but it's very delicious.

But you eat it apart, kind of like let's say rice.

Like a side dish.

Like a side dish.

All right. It sounds delicious. And obviously it's a very big meal, but very, very common, a traditional holiday in the United States.

It's very fun to celebrate as well. You get together with family and you have this nice meal together.

That's right. It's a wonderful holiday. And we'll be talking a bit about it in a second.

But let's just take one more listen to today's dialogue.

So what are you doing for Thanksgiving?

Not much, really. It's more of an American tradition. So back home, we don't really celebrate it.

In fact, I'm not even sure of what exactly is being celebrated.

Well, you know, it's a time to get together with all your family and be thankful for everything.

Yeah, but how did this holiday come to be?

Well, the first settlers of Massachusetts arrived there because of religious persecution from England and King James.

Once in the New World, they befriended a native named Squanto who taught them how to harvest food from the area, such as corn.

And then what happened?

Well, they had enough harvest for the next winter, and in celebration, they decided to have a big feast with the natives,

giving thanks to the land and everyone for their food, health and new lives.

Interesting. I am amazed how big and delicious Thanksgiving dinners are.

Come to my house for Thanksgiving. We're having turkey, pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes with gravy and lots of stuffing.

Count me in.

All right, so Thanksgiving is a national holiday. Now, is it you said it's a Thursday.

It's always on Thursday.

So you get that Thursday off from school, from work and everything.

You get Thursday and Friday.

So you get two days.

Yeah, it's a four day weekend.

Oh, nice.

And it's a wonderful holiday because it's something that everybody in America can celebrate.

Because, you know, for Christmas, for example, some people don't celebrate Christmas.

Or you don't really get holiday time off during the summer for everyone, maybe just the schoolchildren.

And so this is actually a nice holiday because everybody is home.

Right. So it doesn't have a religious connotation because you're talking about, you know, the settlers and how they arrived there

and they survived a harsh winter.

And so, as you say, it's kind of like a neutral holiday where you just it's a good excuse to get together, have a big meal

and just spend quality time with the family.

That's right. You cook all day. You eat. You watch some football on TV.

You spend some time with your family and you fall asleep very, very full.

So this is another very interesting thing is that usually on TV, because everyone is home,

everyone is having dinner or spending time with each other, they will have a football game on TV for Thanksgiving.

That's right. So everyone's sitting around eating dinner and then there's a football game on the TV.

Wow. So that kind of that's kind of bad for the football players that have to be playing on Thanksgiving Day.

Yeah, but they get all hungry, you know, out there on the field and they get to go home and eat a big turkey.

And have a big meal. It's very, very interesting.

We'll put some pictures of the food that is commonly served on this holiday.

And it would be interesting to know if I know a lot of our listeners are not originally from the United States.

So if you are there, tell us if you've celebrated it or how have you seen it or will you celebrate it or any story that you can share with us.

That's right. We are very excited to hear this from you and we wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving.

Visit our site EnglishPod.com to tell us more.

All right. We'll see you guys there. Bye.