🦃 Nashville History: Thanksgiving at the Duncan Hotel in 1898

Not your traditional Thanksgiving meal..

November 28, 2024

🤠 Happy Thanksgiving -

We wanted to switch things up here for the Holiday and give you a quick history tidbit. The Duncan Hotel, built in 1889, hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for its guests in 1898. This dinner had a wide array of food and most of it was not your “quote-on-quote” typical Thanksgiving food. We have listed.. and explained.. most of these dishes below.

  • 1898 Thanksgiving Food

    • Turkey

    • Sweet Potatoes

    • Cranberry Sauce

    • Pumpkin Pie

    • Blue Point Oysters

    • Pompano, a fish from the Atlantic or Gulf coasts, served with Béarnaise sauce and tomato puree

    • Pommes Comtesse, a sweet dish made with crab apples

    • Terrapin Philadelphia style, a turtle soup with a splash of sherry

    • Beef, with a sherry-infused Hollandaise sauce

    • Timbale of Oyster Crabs, Wellington. A small potpie made of oyster crabs

    • Croustade of pineapple, pastry with a sweet filling

    • Apricotine punch, an alcoholic beverage made with apricot brandy

    • Prairie chicken, wrapped in bacon

    • Hominy fritters, a variation of hush puppies

    • Duncan salad, a salad with unknown contents

    • Nesselrode ice cream, a frozen custard made with candied fruit, chestnut purée, and a cherry liqueur sauce

Nowadays, the Noelle Hotel stands in Downtown Nashville where the Duncan Hotel once did.

Hueston Nelson | Publisher | The Nashville Grapevine

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