Pennsylvania Bacon Fest
People will have a party for almost anything. In Easton, Pennsylvania, folks are proud to celebrate one of their favorite foods: Bacon!!! The Pennsylvania Bacon Fest has grown into one of the region’s most popular events. With more than 100 vendors and a ton of musical acts performing on eight stages, the two-day festival attracts more than 50,000 people each year.
The festival runs at the same time as the Easton Farmers’ Market — which happens to be the oldest, continuously operating open-air market in the country — offering local, sustainable, fresh organic bread, produce, cheese, meat and more. So it’s no surprise that one of the aspects of this festival that makes it so unusual is its mission. The goal of Bacon Fest is to promote local, sustainable farms, farm-to-table food and restaurants and, of course, bacon! While there, you can taste bacon candy or try your hand at making a unique BLT. You can also eat bacon ice cream and sample some great bacon cupcakes!! Before you eat all of that, you may want to run in the Racin’ Bacon 5K. Easton is serious about their bacon. How about you?
Journalists’ Day in China
On Nov. 8, Journalists’ Day will be celebrated in the People’s Republic of China. Although it was only recognized in 1999, it’s roots go back to 1934, to commemorate a reporter who was prosecuted for writing an investigative report criticizing the government.
Some people find it odd that China, which controls its media, would have this holiday. China is ranked very poorly in the Press Freedom Index, usually ranking in the five worst countries for journalism.
On Chinese Journalists’ Day, Chinese reporters are congratulated on their work by their supervisors and government officials. Unfortunately, they do not get a day off. It is a working holiday.
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is the kick-off to the biggest holiday season in America. Many events occur on Thanksgiving that signal the beginning of the Christmas season. But that wasn’t always the case. The first Thanksgiving didn’t have parades and marching bands. Instead it was a celebration of survival.
Throughout that first brutal winter in the colonies, most of the people remained on board the ship, where they suffered from exposure, scurvy and outbreaks of contagious disease. Only half of the Mayflower’s original passengers and crew lived to see their first New England spring. In March, the remaining settlers moved ashore, where they received an astonishing visit from an Abenaki Indian who greeted them in English. Several days later, he returned with another Native American, Squanto, a member of the Pawtuxet tribe who had been kidnapped by an English sea captain and sold into slavery before escaping to London and returning to his homeland on an exploratory expedition. Squanto taught the Pilgrims how to cultivate corn, extract sap from maple trees, catch fish in the rivers and avoid poisonous plants.
In November 1621, after the Pilgrims’ first corn harvest proved successful, Governor William Bradford organized a celebratory feast and invited a group of the fledgling colony’s Native American allies, including the Wampanoag chief Massasoit. Now remembered as American’s “first Thanksgiving”—although the Pilgrims themselves may not have used the term at the time—the festival lasted for three days. While no record exists of the historic banquet’s exact menu, we know that there were no pies, cakes or other desserts because the colonists’ sugar supply was gone!
