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ODDS & ENDS
A Taste of November
text by MB EDITORIAL STAFF
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223 RAW OYSTERS
In 2019, Kristen Amy McElhaney ate 223 raw oysters in 50 minutes at Wintzell’s restaurant, breaking the women’s record for the restaurant.
Readers share two Thanksgiving recipes containing a fraction of the amount of bivalve mollusks on page 38.
—Erma Bombeck
BLACK FRIDAY
is not the busiest shopping day of the year. This designation goes to the Saturday before Thanksgiving.
Use our gift guide on page 48 to plan ahead and avoid the crowds.
1858
THE FIRST YEAR THANKSGIVING WAS OBSERVED AS A HOLIDAY IN ALABAMA The governors of Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and North and South Carolina declared Thursday, November 25, to be a day of Thanksgiving.
ONE THANKFUL BIRD
Each year the Bates family brings a bird named Clyde to the Alabama Governor’s Mansion for the annual pardoning of the turkey.
Helen and Willie Claude Bates received turkey eggs as a wedding gift in 1923 and soon began selling turkeys to neighbors for holiday meals. In 1970, when I-65 opened, so did Bate’s House of Turkey restaurant. Today, the family still raises pastured turkeys in a pecan grove on their 900-acre farm.
THE WORD RESTAURANT IS FRENCH FOR “FOOD THAT RESTORES”
In the decades before the French Revolution, 18th-century Parisian aristocrats sought enlightenment— and to distance themselves from the peasants— by enjoying delicate dishes like restorative bone broths known as bouillon. Restaurateurs served their soups at small cafe tables and offered customers a menu of choices, something quite different from the heavy communal meals commonly served at pubs. Before long, these bouillon shops evolved into the modern restaurants we know and love.
GRAND OPENING
NOVEMBER 15, 1852
The Battle House Hotel opened on Royal Street. Famous guests included Henry Clay, Je erson Davis, Millard Filmore, Stephen Douglas and Oscar Wilde.
