Thanks for Dinner: The Main Course
Not always turkey, not always just roasted

Menus: By Decade

Recipes: By Type

A Variety of Meats

The most common main course for Thanksgiving is, of course, turkey. So it's not surprising that turkey shows up in a lot of the menus. However, it's not the only meat that shows up. Chicken, duck, ham, partridges, fish, and game all also were on table at one time or another during Thankgiving. You also find recipes were people got creative when it came to how they prepared their turkey (or other meat). Below is a selection of recipes through the decades. Some are representative of the style of cooking for the decade. Others are outliers and are included to showcase the diversity of recipes.

Main Course Recipes

1882: Scollops of Quail with Truffles
  • 6 quail or 12 quail breasts
  • 8 ounces truffles, fresh or canned
  • Brown or Espagnole sauce
  • Madeira
Remove the breasts of six quail. Cut each breast in two and trim into a round shape. This is called a scollop. Cook 8 ounces of sliced truffles in Madeira wine. Put the scollops of quail into a frying pan with some butter and fry them until they are done. Mix with the truffle. Put a scollop and truffles neatly on a dish, pour in some Espagnole or brown sauce flavored with Madeira, and serve.
- Dingens Brothers. The Cosmopolitan Cook And Recipe Book. Buffalo: N. Y.: Printing house of E. H. Hutchinson, 1882.

1885: Chicken Pie
  • 1 3-4 lb chicken, whole or cut into individual pieces
  • 1/4 lb pork fat
  • Salt
  • Pepper
  • 1 tbsp flour
  • 1 tsp pepper
  • 3 3/4 cups flour
  • 2 tbsps butter
  • Ice cold water (enough to make a paste)
  • 1/2 lb cold butter
  • 1 egg, for the egg wash
Boil the chicken until it is cooked completely. Reserve the chicken broth made by boiling the chicken. Cut the chicken into pieces at the joints if it is whole. The chicken can be cut into smaller pieces if needed to fit in the pie. Cut the pork fat into thin strips. Fry it in a pan with the chicken pieces until they are brown, seasoning with salt and pepper to taste. Remove the chicken and pork from the pan, and add the flour to the drippings, cooking over medium-high heat until the flour browns. Add 2 cups of the reserved chicken broth, a tsp of salt, 1/4 tsp of pepper. Boil the gravy for two minutes
To make the crust for the chicken pie, mix the flour, 1 tsp salt, butter, and just enough cold water to hold the flour together. Turn out onto a floured surface and roll until its an inch thick. Slice a 1/4 lb of butter into a large sheet or lay pieces of butter side by side on the pastry to form a large sheet. Fold the pastry in such a way that the butter is full enclosed in the pastry. Wrap the pastry in a floured towel, and put in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, remove from the refrigerator, roll the pastry again, cut enough 1/4 lb butter, fold the pastry over it, wrap in a towel, and return to the refrigerator. Remove from the refrigerator, roll to the thickness of a 1/2 in, fold it into thirds, and roll again to 1/2 in thickness. Be careful not to let the butter break through the pastry. After rolling it a final time, cut the pastry in half. Lay half the pastry in a large, deep, earthen pie dish.
Into the pastry lined pie dish, add a layer of the fried chicken and pork. Cover it with just enough of the gravy to moisten it. Top with the other half of the pastry, wetting the edges of both pastry crusts so that they adhere and seal the chicken and pork in. Cut slits in the top crust to let steam escape. Brush the top with an egg wash. Bake in an oven at 350° until the pie crust is browned. Rewarm the remaining gravy if necessary, and send it to the table with the pie.
- Corson, Juliet. Miss Corson's Practical American Cookery And Household Management: an Every-day Book for American Housekeepers, Giving the Most Acceptable Etiquette of American Hospitality, And Comprehensive And Minute Directions for Marketing, Carving, And General Table-service, Together With Suggestions for the Diet of Children And the Sick. New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1885.

1948: Roast Turkey with Peanut Butter
  • 10-12 lb turkey
  • 1 tbsp flour
  • 1 tbsp parika
  • 1 tsp celery salt
  • 1 tbsp salt
  • 1 tsp pepper
  • 1/2 cup peanut butter
  • 1/3 cup milk or cream (enough to make a paste)
Mix flour, salt, pepper, parika, celery salt and peanut butter into a paste. Blend in cream or milk.
Wash, clean and stuff bird. Place in roasting pan. Spread paste all over bird, covering well. Add 1 cup water into pan. Place in moderate oven, 400° F., for 3 hours, basting every 30 minutes and turning at least twice to brown on all sides. One cup stock can be substituted for 1 cup water. Allow ¾ pound per person.
- De Knight, Freda, 1910-, and James B. Herndon. A Date With a Dish: a Cook Book of American Negro Recipes. New York: Hermitage Press, 1948.