Ringraziamento - storia e cibo

Almost one week has passed since Thanksgiving, but I haven't had time to write about it until now.. and I'm sure my Italian friends will be curious to see how Americans spend Thanksgiving!
So, first, a historical note about why Thanksgiving is Thanksgiving. Since all Americans should know about it, I'll write it in Italian. If you want to check your knowledge about it, though, I found a quiz on it :)

La prima festa del Ringraziamento risale al 1621, e fu festeggiata dai Pellegrini che erano arrivati sul Mayflower dall'Olanda (dove erano fuggiti, originariamente dall'Inghilterra). Il loro primo anno in America era stato molto duro, ma nel 1621 ebbero un abbondante raccolto e decisero di indire una festa di tre giorni per ringraziare per tale ricchezza. Alla festa invitarono anche i nativi 'Indiani' dato che li avevano molto aiutati a sopravvivere al loro primo inverno. Altre celebrazioni del Ringraziamento seguirono, e un giorno del ringraziamento fu inizialmente ufficializzato nel 1777. A questa celebrazione i nativi non furono piu' invitati.. dato che tra le cose per cui si ringraziava, c'era anche la vittoria sui 'pagani nativi'..
La tradizione di mangiare tacchino nel giorno del ringraziamento viene dal fatto che i Pellegrini avrebbero mangiato oche selvatiche e cacciagione, durante la prima festa del 1621, mentre le tradizioni della torta di zucca e varie altre torte non hanno vere origini nel passato culinario.

This year, we spent Thanksgiving with Lucas's parents, and it was a really really nice break. Moreover, Thanksgiving day was also Lucas's mom, so it was the perfect moment to visit! We arrived on Wednesday evening and stayed at their place till Saturday afternoon. For me it was absolutely relaxing. Just eating, cooking, going for a walk, and even some shopping on Saturday! And a few games at Scrabble (Scarabeo).
Here is my Thanksgiving plate:
From the top, going clockwise: cornbread, peperonata alle melanzane and very close, green beans. Then, beets, potatoes and carrots with besciamella, bread roll, country ham, turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy and stuffing in the center.
If you want to know more about the food and all the other things we've done, read more :)

In the dish above, I made two of the vegetables. The first, peperonata alle melanzane, is a mixture or green peppers, eggplants, and tomato sauce sauteed with garlic and onions, spiced with oregano, sage and black pepper. The second veggie dish (barbabietole, patate e carote con besciamella) is prepared by baking beets, potatoes and carrots (for a long time, beets need at least 1 hour, potatoes and carrots are ok with 45 minutes), cutting them into cubes, and at last grilling them in the oven for a few minutes again with besciamella sauce, salt, a bit of paprika and a little cheddar cheese on top. Besciamella is made by putting 2 tbsp flour, a little sauce and a teaspoon nutmeg in a pan and adding ~ 1.5 cups of milk to it, slowly, so it doesn't clump. Bring to boil, add ~1 tbsp butter, and keep stirring until it thickens.
Lucas's grandmother made her famous cornbread with broccoli, and Debbie (Lucas's mom) made all the rest :) - we woke up many hours after the turkey was first put in the oven.. :)
Here are Lucas's grandparents, who were with us:

Since it was Lucas's mom birthday, I prepared a cake for her, using a recipe taken from 'Gorgeous cakes'. I know she's a chocolate lover, so I thought this super-chocolaty cake would be good:
I will post the recipe in a next post, because it was delicious.

But my cake was like one drop in the bucket of baked goods that Debbie prepared :)
She made 4 chocolate pies, 1 pumpkin pie, 1 coconut pie, and 1 peacan pie. :) :)
I'll show here a piece of the peacan pie:
'Peacans' sono delle noci simili alle nostre noci, ma di forma piu' allungata e piu' piccole e gustose. Questo pie e' praticamente solo fatto con queste noci e sciroppo di glucosio. Io riesco a mangiarne solo una piccola fettina per volta, dato che e' ovviamente molto dolce, ma e' molto buono.. :)
She also baked about 200 mini-muffins:
You can see here the banana-nuts, banana, apple, and apple-nuts muffins (from top, clockwise).. hard to decide what's the best. :)
And also, she baked about 200 sausage balls:
Per i miei amici italiani che si chiedevano cosa fossero: sono davvero chiamate sausage balls, e sono fatte con salsiccia (macinata, stile americano) e biscuik (farina e lievito, praticamente), e passate al forno. I find it interesting that these are supposedly a breakfast food :) - I like them very much, but I can't have them early in the morning :) - I can't have bacon and eggs either, though, so I'm a bad example :)

I decided I'll speak about the non-food related Thanksgiving activities in another post.