As I began to think about what kind of research I would like to do for an “ecology of food” project, I found myself thinking about social and cultural meanings of food. As an environmental studies major with a stronger background in the arts and humanities than in sciences, I immediately leaned more toward projects that focused on cultural behavior. The idea of holiday traditions struck me as an interesting phenomenon across cultures. Every culture that I could think of had some tradition or celebration in which food was an integral component.

As I contemplated holidays and food further I invariably thought about Thanksgiving. In recent years I’ve become more and more disillusioned with the “meaning” of Thanksgiving. As a nation, the Thanksgiving story is one of the defining stories of American identity. Yet, I couldn’t help but feel that the story was more of a myth, a sugarcoating of European-Indian relations that makes for a more benign reading of what white Americans’ ancestors did to the native people of this land.

Furthermore, I became somewhat sickened at the mass consumption that Thanksgiving seems to represent. Granted, I thought, the holiday allows for time off from school and work, while giving families a chance to reconnect and share thanks. Frankly, though, I thought more about how America is a prosperous nation that consumes more resources worldwide than anyone else, celebrating holidays by gorging on massive quantities of food. It all seemed so callous to me. I began to think, does a feast really mean much when every day is a feast? Can’t we have a holiday that allows us to give thanks by eating and consuming very little, and sharing our bounty with those less fortunate?