Thanksgiving past

I went to the grocery store to pick up a couple of things for lunch. It’s a straight shot from the front door to the meat section. I headed to the meat case looking for an alternative protein for lunch.

As I was looking for the specials there were several people arguing about turkeys. This one or that one, the neighbors paid 49 dollars for a turkey.

I then realized it four days till Thanksgiving. Grabbed a package of turkey thighs and a box of dressing. I’m good.

I’ve been busy with projects. Time has got away form me. I’ve got friends coming in the day after Thanksgiving. I got to clean up the house, big time.

What’s this have to do with Writing Steampunk?

What was Thanksgiving like in 1880? There’s little information was on the web. Did they eat turkey? Dressing was common with most meals. It was a way to use old bread. You didn’t waste food in the 1880’s. Ice boxes were somewhat common. Ice was shipped in from the Northeast from ice houses where the frozen top of lakes were chopped up and stored. Still long term storage of food was hard to do. Some food could be salted, brined (as in pickled) or dried.

Canning wasn’t common. A lot of canning still used glass containers. Hard to ship the glass jars making canned goods expensive.

Your character could be working so hard on her river going pile driver hoping to win the new bridge contract that she forgets Thanksgiving is right around the corner. She has to make her mother’s famous turkey biscuits for Thanksgiving.

Or the hero is in a race to develop a steam powered crawler that can travel through deep mud to supply remote areas that has had their crops wiped out by floods. The storms and rain are stopping the air ships from making the run, and it cost too much to send food by airship.

Think of having your hero drop food out of an air ship. Supplying cattle trapped in a snow storm. The enemy cattle baron tries to shoot down and heavily damages your hero’s air ship. Saved by the native Americans that the air ship supplied earlier with food (the cattle food is grain and it wasn’t really meant for them). Think of the big show down between the air ship crew with the Native Americans against the Cattle Baron and his army of werewolf gunslingers.

Stay strong, write on, give thanks.  Professor Hyram Voltage.