Thanksgiving in Maastricht

Thanksgiving with Alex at Cafe Rilette

Today is Thanksgiving. We couldn't find a restaurant with turkey on the menu on this day, but with some help from the neighborhood we got into the Thanksgiving spirit anyway. We ate a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at our favorite Maastricht restaurant, Cafe Rilette. One of Jim's students, Alex, joined us for the feast. No turkey, of course, but we brought along Thanksgiving decorations and some delicious cranberry chutney that was made fresh this morning by the people at Adriaan de Smaakmaker. This cozy shop at Sint Pieterstraat 36 makes their own mustards, jams, chutneys, salad dressings, vinegars and more from seasonal fruits and vegetables (much of it organic, made with produce provided by local farmers). A while ago I asked if they would have any cranberry sauce around the time of our American Thanksgiving holiday. I don't think they normally make cranberry products until Christmas- but they made a batch early so we could enjoy it with our Thanksgiving feast.  

James and Angeliek, who make all the delicious edibles at Adriaan de Smaakmaker.

The cranberry chutney was delicious- LEKKER!  We thank you, James and Angeliek, for helping to make this a special Thanksgiving away from home!

The First Thanksgiving, by Jennie Augusta Brownscombe (1914)

The first American Thanksgiving was celebrated in the autumn of 1621 in Plymouth Plantation, a Pilgrim settlement in the British colony of Massachusetts. The Pilgrims were religious dissenters who were persecuted for their views in their home country of England. A group of them left England in 1607 and settled in Leiden, Holland. The Dutch people were more tolerant of religious differences, and life was much better for the Pilgrims in Leiden. In 1620, 28 of the Leiden Pilgrims left there to sail to America, along with a group of others who were also looking for a better life in the American colonies. They sailed on the ship Mayflower, leaving from Plymouth, England in September of that year. It was a difficult crossing. Huge waves pounded the ship, and the passengers suffered from food shortages.  In November, when they arrived in Massachusetts, things got worse. Winter snow made it impossible for them to begin their settlement, so the passengers stayed on board the Mayflower until March. Many of the passengers and crew died on board the ship that winter because of outbreaks of contagious disease. By the time they left the ship to build their huts in the new Plymouth colony, only 53 of the original 102 passengers had survived. With help from the Wampanoag Indians the Pilgrims learned to catch eel, and grow corn. The Indians also donated food to the starving colonists. To thank the Wampanoags for their help the Pilgrims invited them to share in a feast to celebrate the Pilgrim’s first harvest. The Wampanoags hunted together with the colonists to provide meat for the meal. For 3 days the English settlers and the Wampanoag men, women and children feasted together. It is this feast at Plymouth Plantation that inspired the citizens of the new United States to set aside a special Day of Thanksgiving, beginning in 1777.

Speaking of Indians…earlier in the week I met a friendly Dutch Indian tribe in the stairwell of our apartment building. They live upstairs from us. The leader of the tribe, Chief Ralph, wished us a Happy Thanksgiving. We gave him and his tribe of 3 boys a few small Thanksgiving gifts. Today Chief Ralph stopped by with a special Thanksgiving gift for us. It's a beautiful pen & ink drawing of Maastricht, done in the style of a New Yorker magazine cover. Jim LOVES the New Yorker, and he LOVES Maastricht- so this is a perfect gift, a nice souvenir of our happy stay in Maastricht. We thank Ralph for being such a good neighbor and for this wonderful, special gift. 

And we thank Alex for joining us for this Maastricht Thanksgiving dinner. He was great company and we all had a very good time at Cafe Rilette.

We have a lot to be thankful for on this wonderful day!

Turkey Greeting
in the window of our building