A dip into newspaper archives is the closest I get in my workaday life to the thrill I used to feel reading time-travel books when I was a little girl. And what better time to explore them than Thanksgiving, the holiday to which the adjective “traditional” is often joined at the hip?

Without a plan (but with a deadline), I traveled through time in early November to read as much as I could about Thanksgivings past, looking for recipes and other tidbits about what Mainers ate over the decades, and the centuries, both in times of turmoil and of relative ease.

It’s a Thanksgiving cliché to observe that the sides are more exciting than the main event. Likewise, the digressions in the archives – gadzooks! That word, incidentally, the Oxford English Dictionary traces to the mid-17th century, putting it within about 30 years of the very first Thanksgiving at Plimoth Plantation. Somehow, it’s hard to picture a Pilgrim saying it.

My parents married in June 1954. Idly wondering what they might have eaten for their first Thanksgiving as newlyweds, I dialed into the Portland Press Herald on Nov. 21 of that year. Holiday recipes did not get a big splash, but I did come across cranberry relish, Five-Minute Creamed Turkey (canned cream of mushroom soup and leftover turkey) and, from Maine’s treasured food columnist Marjorie Standish, the suggestion to give your Thanksgiving feast a “perfect ending” with Ritz Pie.

I remember the recipe from the back of the cracker box in my childhood. It’s a sugary meringue that includes crushed crackers and is baked in a pie plate. That sweet-salty combo that we think of as a modern trend – salted caramel ice cream, sea salt flakes atop warm chocolate chip cookies and such? The Ritz folks got there first.

There was some friendly advice for teens in 1954 on how to behave at the Thanksgiving table. Do not, the column instructed, be one of these four disagreeable characters: “Don the Difficult Eater, Walt the Waster, Carol the Chatterer, or Rod the Rusher.” There was no such housewifely tone in the paper’s editorial that day, however. It called on Mainers, perhaps a tad sententiously, to assess their blessings, “greatest of all is that the world is at peace … Thanksgiving Day is and ought to be something deeper in meaning than a day of mere frivolity and Lucullan feasting.”

ON THE HOME FRONT

So what was Thanksgiving Day in Maine like when the world was at war? I headed back to Nov. 22, 1942, to find out. The paper was packed with ads for comfortable women’s shoes “for that man-sized job you’re doing,” appeals to buy war bonds and reminders to behave well despite wartime disruptions. “When trains are late and crowded, when usual railroad cars and comforts are missing now and again, please understand it’s all part of this grim business of war,” the Maine Central Railroad reiterated to its customers.

But the holiday went on, and it wasn’t all bad news. The headline over a roundup of recipes read, “Thanksgiving Turkey Plentiful, Patriotic and Unrationed.” An ad from Shaw’s offered Mainers their choice of turkey from Maine, Oregon, North Dakota, Minnesota or Nebraska. The suggested holiday menu is instantly recognizable: Roast Turkey and Oyster Stuffing, Cranberry Sauce, Crisp Celery, Maple Syrup Candied Sweet Potatoes, Escalloped Cabbage, Pumpkin Tarts and Coffee.

“There is no finer way to give thanks this year than to share your Thanksgiving dinner with a soldier or sailor boy,” the recipe column began. “There are many of these boys in nearby army camps or naval stations who would get a real delight out of a festive dinner in a home-like family atmosphere.”

We sure hope those sailor boys enjoyed their coffee; an article on Page 1 that same day in 1942 reported that coffee sales were halted for one week, “preliminary to the start of a cup a day rationing.”

Poking about for Thanksgiving recipes in an earlier decade, I was surprised to run into Adolf Hitler again. But there he was, on the front page of the Portland Press Herald on Nov. 10, 1923: “Hitler is seriously wounded in attack with bayonet and bombs. Revolution meets defeat,” the headline said with, as it grimly turned out, vast overconfidence. A “wealthy hotel man” unable to procure a divorce, also on Page 1, got higher billing.

The Thanksgiving meal from 101 years ago would also be right at home on our tables today: roast turkey and giblet sauce, cranberry jelly, mashed potatoes, creamed onions, biscuits and pumpkin pie. A fictional housekeeper in the recipe column described it as “a simple, old-fashioned dinner.”

Stuffed from my imaginary 1923 feast, I left the (not yet quite) flapper era behind to explore another excruciating war: How did Mainers living through the Civil War manage to give thanks given the events of the day? Amid a dearth of culinary details, The Portland Daily Press on Nov. 23, 1864, did carry a report that the Adams & Co. express, a delivery service, “have carried off from Boston … upwards of thirty tons of Thanksgiving ‘fixings’ for the soldiers in the Army of the Potomac.”

The following week, on Nov. 28, it icily noted this: “We are informed that three or four families in Yarmouth are so decidedly southern in their sympathies that they scrupulously observed Jeff Davis’ Thanksgiving week before last but paid no attention to our Thanksgiving on the 24th.”

It wasn’t until six years later, in 1870, that President Ulysses S. Grant officially made Thanksgiving (and Christmas and New Year’s) a federal holiday. Several issues of the November Daily Eastern Argus, published in Portland from 1803 to 1921, give the outlines of the holiday that year. There is a concert at City Hall and a Thanksgiving ball (“tickets admitting gent & lady, $1.50”). Locals are disappointed when a downpour on Nov.  22 rules out the holiday sleigh rides they had been looking forward to.

The paper offers a peek at the meal, too. A few days before Thanksgiving, amid ads for corsets, hoop skirts and (highly suspect) cures for consumption is this: “Balls and parties are always an interesting part of Thanksgiving festivities. Oysters on such occasions are indispensable items for the perfect supper table. Jesse Freemen, No. 110 Exchange St., is prepared to fill orders from out of town at the shortest notice.”

The Daily Eastern Argus also reports that “turkies” “so essential to a Thanksgiving dinner,” cost 25 to 28 cents, adding that “the quality of the poultry is better this year than last. It is very fine.”

A few weeks earlier, on Nov. 10, 1870, the Daily Eastern Argus had carried even better news for housewives: “The unfounded and absured announcement promulgated that sewing machines induced ovarian excitement of an undesirable character turn out as foolish as they prove groundless statements.”

POLITICS AND PIE

By chance, it’s Election Day  2024 as I am writing this, which spurred me to investigate another important election year for Maine. In 1884, Mainer James G. Blaine ran, and lost, on the Republican ticket for president of the United States; he was defeated by New Yorker Grover Cleveland.

Just a few weeks later, on Nov. 27, 1884, the Daily Eastern Argus noted that “Thanksgiving, that day appointed by our forefathers after the first harvest, has again come round and with it comes causes for Thanksgiving and causes for grief – thanksgiving that an honest man has been elected president by the Democrats and grief that Blaine has been crushed, by Republicans.” (Members of Blaine’s own party – the so-called “mugwumps” who thought Blaine corrupt – had deserted him for Cleveland, a reformist.)

Meanwhile, on the food front, the paper reported that “A Thanksgiving dinner of chicken, pumpkin pie, etc. will be served to the inmates of the workhouse to-day.” The paper also listed, by name, the many employers that had handed out turkeys to workers, including stove dealer O. W. Fullam who “made his crew of men the happy recipients of a nice fat turkey each for Thanksgiving.”

A mere 10 years later, on Nov. 25, 1894, my archival browsing brought me up short. I think of celebrity chefs as a modern invention, to no small extent the result of the 1993 launch of Food Network television, which, by the way, first went on air just two days before Thanksgiving. But there I was in 1894 gobbling up Thanksgiving ideas from “Some Famous Masters of the Art of Cooking,” as the Sunday Telegram headline phrased it, in its story with menus and recipes from these late 19th-century celebs.

“The Supreme Being creates life, the cook furnishes the means by which it is maintained, and is not the maintenance of life second only to the creation of it?” Chef August Chauncouncey of Welcker’s Hotel and Restaurant in Washington, D.C., asked in the Telegram story. “Surely the answer must be in the affirmative, and that answer, once given, we must admit that the cook’s profession is of all others the noblest and the most entitled to respect.”

He and the other equally self-important chefs given ink and column space were markedly unexcited by the usual Thanksgiving fare. “Variety is said to be the spice of life, and there is nothing in which variety is more desirable than in one’s Thanksgiving dinner, which at the best must have much of a sameness in it as it recurs from year to year, year in and year out,” Chef Herman J. Berghaus of Young’s Hotel in Boston complained. To switch things up, he proposed a dessert of Fruit Tapioca.

Collectively, the other name chefs suggested a glamorous menu that spanned squab, quail, lobster a la Maryland, curry of lobster, lamb chops, mutton cutlets and a complicated pudding made from sponge cake, custard, citron, dried fruits, brandy and whipped cream. Many of the dishes for this most American of holidays had elegant French names. Given that the country’s economy was in a tailspin in the aftermath of the Panic of 1893, it seems likely these were merely reading material for the ordinary Mainer.

Not 50 years later, in 1933, Americans, and Mainers, were in the midst of a much deeper economic crisis, the Great Depression.

But local hoteliers didn’t blame their Thanksgiving troubles on the troubled economy. On Nov. 26, 1933, the Portland Sunday Telegram and Sunday Press Herald ran a lengthy article headlined, “Old Time Thanksgiving Appetites And Groaning Festive Boards Have Become Relics Of History. Local Hotels Blame Modern Ideas In Regard To Vitamins As One Cause — Original Spirit of Day Seems to Be Forgotten.”

“The spread of realism as a philosophy caused education of the masses in the matter of food,” the story reported, “this in turn gave rise to a study of vitamines and a belief that it doesn’t pay to put too much fuel on the boiler. That at least, is what local hotel men believe.”

The article compared a gluttonous pre-war Thanksgiving buffet (17 desserts! “and the diner was expected to eat more than one”) with a comparatively modest repast in 1933: olives and celery, roast turkey with walnut dressing and cranberry sauce, fruit cocktail, Waldorf salad, mashed potatoes, squash, hot rolls and cookies.

In that same issue, Page 9 carried news that, while not directly (or even indirectly) relevant to the Thanksgiving repast is too important not to share: A cure for baldness.

Baldness, opined scalp specialist Paul A Thomas on Nov. 26, 1933, is the fault of “too much civilization.” His cure? “Go back to the farm … if you would retain your hair.”

Happy Thanksgiving, Mainers, whatever your coiffure and whatever era you celebrate.

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SPICED CIDER

“Spiced Cider served in the living room is a pleasant prelude to the festive meal,” Louise Bennett Weaver wrote in an article that appeared in the Portland Sunday Telegram and Sunday Press Herald on Nov. 22, 1942.

To serve 8, simmer 10 minutes covered, 6 cups cider, 1 sliced apple, 8 whole cloves, 1 inch stick cinnamon, 1 teaspoon each grated lemon and orange rinds, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Strain and add 2-3 cups orange juice and 1 tablespoon lemon juice. Reheat and serve in small cups or mugs. This cider blend can be made in advance and chilled until time for reheating.

SAUSAGE AND APRICOT DRESSING

Adapted from The Maine Ingredient column by Harry Schwartz in the Portland Press Herald, November 14, 2001. The top-of-the-fold Page 1 article that day reported on a visit to Ground Zero in New York by Meredith Goad, the now retired longtime Press Herald food writer. It began, “The landscape, gray, black and smoldering, still looks shocked.”

Confession: I changed the original recipe considerably. Stuffing is very accommodating, and since me and mine would be the ones eating this, I suited myself. I used stale bread cubes instead of breadcrumbs, and fresh herbs rather than the 1 teaspoon dried Italian herb blend called for in the original. I used significantly less sausage and browned it on its own. I tossed in a little melted butter – I ask you, what is stuffing without butter? Finally, I cut the original recipe in half. If you expect a crowd for Thanksgiving, you’ll want to double the amounts I’ve given.

Yields about 6 servings

Generous 1/2 pound mild pork sausage
1/2 bunch celery, with leaves, chopped
1 large leek, green part trimmed away, washed well and chopped
Salt and pepper
1-2 tablespoons butter
5 ounces dried apricots, chopped, or less to taste (about 1 cup)
1/2 to 3/4 cup white wine or sherry
About 1 ½ cups chicken stock
Generous amount fresh herbs: sage, thyme, parsley, chopped
6 cups stale bread cubes

Break up the sausage and sauté over medium heat in a large Dutch oven until nicely browned on all sides. Remove from the pot and set aside.

Add the celery and leeks to the fat left in the pot, season with salt and pepper to taste, and sauté, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 20 minutes. Add the butter to the pot and let it melt. Add the apricots and return the reserved, browned sausage to the pan. Add the white wine or sherry – start with 1/2 cup and add more if you think you’d like to. Let everything simmer for about 5 minutes, uncovered, until the alcohol is absorbed.

Add the chicken stock to the pot and bring to a simmer. Stir in the fresh herbs. Stir in the bread cubes and stir gently but well so that the cubes are nicely absorbing the liquid but are not turning into mush. Transfer the stuffing to a buttered dish big enough to accommodate the dressing.

At this point, you can cover the casserole, refrigerate it and bake it later. When you are ready to bake it, preheat the oven to 325 degrees F and bake the dressing until just slightly crisp and brown, about 40 minutes.

APPLESAUCE-SWEET POTATO PIE

Adapted from Lewiston Daily Sun, Nov. 6, 1971. This is the same year that Chez Panisse opened in Berkeley, California, a restaurant that went on to revolutionize the way Americans eat.

“What’s new for Thanksgiving dinner?” the introduction to this recipe in the Lewiston Sun asked rhetorically. “Not the turkey or the stuffing but Applesauce-Sweet Potato Pie, happily blending regional United States favorites – apples in the North, sweet potatoes in the South – for a dessert that’s just right for Thanksgiving, that uniquely American holiday!”

Frankly, given the state of disunity in the country this year, I’m looking for unity wherever I find it. I added a tad more ground ginger than the original called for, and I par-baked the crust before filling it, as I do for all custard pies. Otherwise, the recipe is as originally printed. It’s very tasty.

Yield: 1 pie

2 eggs
1 ½ cup mashed cooked sweet potatoes
1 cup apple sauce
1/2 cup light cream
2 tablespoons butter, melted
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon cloves
1/8 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 par-baked pie shell
Whipped cream, to serve

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

Combine the eggs and sweet potato in a food processor and puree until smooth. Add the remaining ingredients and blend.

Pour into the parbaked pie shell. Bake at 325 degrees F until a small spot in the center of the pie is still slightly jiggly, about 45 minutes. Cool, refrigerate. Serve with freshly whipped cream.

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