Happy Thanksgiving — but consider the “Thankspigging” alternative

Happy Thanksgiving — but consider the “Thankspigging” alternative

From our family to yours: Food & Dining Magazine wishes all of our readers a warm, happy Thanksgiving in 2024. For a bit of holiday humor, the following exploration from Jay Forman first appeared in this space in 2012. 

The Thankspigging Manifesto.

On November twenty-something, most Americans will sit down to a Thanksgiving dinner. They will eat turkey with gravy, mashed potatoes, dressings and casseroles. They will finish with pumpkin pie, wipe their mouths, and push back from the table, thinking that they have had a good meal. They are wrong!

A new power is rising: Thankspigging. And this is the story of the made-up holiday that must be told.

It began with a spark of divine intervention. While browsing the bins of medicine-ball sized frozen turkeys a few years back, my friend Teddy was struck by the fact that turkey, frankly, is boring. An avid pit master and pork devotee, he recognized – correctly – that the pig was a far tastier creature. But with hundreds of years of tradition and millions in marketing behind it, Thanksgiving was not going to easily give up the bird. Being a man of action, Teddy approached me with the concept of a new holiday, a...Read more