Some interesting Thanksgiving “myths” were busted in The Gallery at Astor Center last night. Andrew F. Smith, editor-in-chief of The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink and author of The Turkey: An American Story, gave a lecture stuffed full of entertaining morsels as part of a pre-opening event for the Center, which debuts in January. He also debunked lots of Thanksgiving “fakelore” and illuminated the holiday’s religious origins and development:

• – The “First Thanksgiving” never happened – at least, not in the way you learned about in grade school (they ate venison, not turkey, and it was in Jamestown, not Plymouth).
• – Ben Franklin didn’t propose the turkey as the national symbol. He submitted an emblem of Moses walking out of Egypt. Only when it was rejected and the eagle chosen 10 years later did he offer up the turkey in disgust.
• – The campaign to enshrine Thanksgiving as an official national holiday began as a one-woman operation in the 1850s. Sarah Josepha Hale believed that a common day of thanks had the power to prevent the American Civil War. We’ll never know. Abe Lincoln enacted it as a federal holiday in 1863.
• – Historically, 80% of all U.S. turkey consumption took place in the fall, around Thanksgiving and Christmas. Today, almost 60% of U.S. turkey consumption takes place throughout the rest of the year. Why? Turkey bacon, turkey burgers, turkey sausage.

Astor Center (399 Lafayette St.) officially opens in January, with a schedule of lectures, cooking demonstrations, wine classes, seminars and food-and-beverage industry conventions, presented with the Culinary Institute of America, the Center’s programming partner.

– Josh Rogers