No, I haven't made a mistake in the title, and I haven't taken a vacation this week and recycled one of my summer blogs. Refreshing drinks for hot weather is a perfectly appropriate topic for the fourth week of November!
If you have been reading these blogs, and I am thankful for all of you that do, you know that I love to borrow weather-related titles from music, art, literature, sports, etc. Today is no different. The article "Refreshing Drinks for Hot Weather" appeared in Godey's Lady's Book way back in 1851.
Godey's was a 19th century magazine for women that served to influence everything from fashion to education and even included articles about adapting to weather. The magazine also featured works of Poe, Hawthorne, Longfellow, Sigourney and Child. (If you have only heard of 3 of these 5 names, shame on you and your English teacher! You really should read the works of some of the most famous female writers in American history.)
Some of the weather-related literature that appeared in Godey's made its way into other publications as well, like the 1841 cookbook Early American Cookery, where I found this very useful section about storing and cooking meat under various weather conditions. (Remember that this was 1841, just five years after the Alamo and twenty years before the Civil War!)
"Fresh beef is better for being kept three or four days in moderate, and much longer in cold weather. One reason why beef is not so good or wholesome in summer is, that it must be eaten too fresh, and while the fiber is tough, or it will spoil. Do not attempt to keep it longer than till the second day in hot weather. In the winter, if frozen, and packed in snow, it may be kept many days, even weeks. Allow one-third longer time to cook meat in winter, especially if it has been frozen, than would be required in warm weather."
Godey's also made routine the concept of what I call "Dick VanDyke beds" advising that "twin beds were first made for summer homes. It is more comfortable to sleep alone in the hot weather."
By now you are likely asking what fresh drinks and twin beds in hot weather and storing and cooking meat in cold weather have to do with Thanksgiving week.
The editor of Godey's Lady's Book and author of Early American Cookery was one of the most influential females of the 19th century - Sarah Josepha Hale.
1831 Portrait of Sarah Hale by James Lambdin
You likely know Ms. Hale from her poetry, including one called "Mary's Lamb." That's the one about the little weather lamb whose fleece was white as snow, and followed Mary everywhere. You have undoubtedly shared Ms. Hale's most famous poem with your children. But, that is not the only work of hers that you have shared with your family.
On Thursday, the entire nation will gather to share the inspiration and most famous work of Sarah Josepha Hale.
For decades Hale used the pages of Godey's to write about the need for a national day of reverence, encouraging Governors and Presidents alike to adopt a national holiday. In 1863, President Lincoln, prompted by a letter from Hale, decided to proclaim the last Thursday in November as a national Day of Thanksgiving. We have celebrated this holiday as a nation every year since.
If you are looking for something to share with your family as you sit down for dinner this Thanksgiving, imagine our country in the midst of Civil War, and read the words of President Lincoln:
"The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union."
From all of us at Fox Weather, we wish all of you a safe and Happy Thanksgiving.
