united states

Editor’s Note:

OCTOBER 10, 2022, is now Indigenous People’s Day in America, (formerly known exclusively as “Columbus Day,” in observance of Christopher Columbus’ landing in America on Oct. 12, 1492.) For the past 50 years, this formerlymisnamed occasion has been celebrated so widely that for many folks, it’s become a popular U.S.A. holiday with paid day/s off. But people around the U.S. have been hotly asserting the fact that “Columbus Day” was not a day when Columbus “discovered” America. Rather, he “discovered” that America had long since been discovered, inhabited, and developed for about 10,000 years, by people living in harmony with nature and a vast, gorgeous tapestry of tradition.

One of America’s biggest – if not THE biggest holiday – each year, is Thanksgiving Day on the 4th Thursday in November. What’s been long-forgotten by most U.S. families over time, who have been breaking bread and slicing Butterballs in remembrance of those Pilgrims (the invading British colonists) who landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620 – is that the regional inhabitants at the time – the Wampanoag tribes – had already been living there for about 10,000 years.

Healthy Hint:

FIRE IN THE HOLE! What would a TRIBAL theme be, without mention of the very first coastal Americans? They collected briny bivalves like oysters, mussels and clams, built hot-stone firepits in the ground and steamed the shellfish to perfection (later, with corn and potatoes), under a bed of seaweed. Up here in New England, U.S.A., we take our “clam-bakes” (and similar “lobster-feeds”) very seriously. They happen on sea-glass strewn island beaches of the North Atlantic – much in the same style of the first ones. But they can be easily replicated on a stovetop at home, like mine, served to a lovely 3-generation family of neighbors as the nights begin to cool.