Fuel for the Festivities – The Thanksgiving Breakfasts of Yesteryear – Inside Adams
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Fuel for the Festivities: The Thanksgiving Breakfasts of Yesteryear
November 21, 2025, Posted by: Jennifer Harbster
The quintessentially American holiday, Thanksgiving evokes images of vast dinner spreads, centered on turkey, and as we cook and bake, prepare and labor on these elaborate feasts, who has time to think about breakfast? Well, some cookbook authors in the 1900s didn’t forget breakfast when they shared their Thanksgiving Day menus!
Front cover of the 1903 “Landmarks Club Cook Book.”A hearty Thanksgiving breakfast menu of chicken pot pie, a common breakfast dish served at Thanksgiving of the time; baked potatoes; baked sweet apples; and coffee comes from the Landmarks Club of California. In 1903, to help raise money to preserve California’s Spanish missions, club founder Charles Fletcher Lummis and the members published “The Landmarks Club Cook Book” (Los Angeles,1903). Lummis, the first city editor of the “Los Angeles Times” and head librarian of the city’s public library, had spent time traveling throughout Latin America. Consequently, he was able to contribute authentic Mexican and Peruvian recipes and essays to the cookbook. Along with recipes for tamales, enchiladas, chiles rellenos, and mole; the book features a section of menu plans for picnics, seasonal bills of fare, special luncheons, dinners and suppers.
The Thanksgiving Day menu page from the 1902 “Woman’s Favorite Cook Book,” pg. 36Boasting of “three thousand helpful suggestions and recipes” and assisted by “one thousand home keepers,” Annie R. Gregory’s “Woman’s Favorite Cook Book” (Chicago, 1902) includes a menu for Thanksgiving Day which presents a substantial Thanksgiving breakfast of grapes, oatmeal, sausage, eggs, potatoes and griddle cakes (e.g. pancakes). In the book, Gregory described herself as a “home caterer, successful housewife, and ideal mother.” When writing her cookbook, she solicited and curated recipes from friends and families from across the U.S. “Woman’s Favorite Cook Book” is really three books in one. The first section includes menu plans; food preparation techniques; and recipes, divided into categories by main ingredient (e.g. fish) or dish type (e.g. soup). The second section is dedicated to vegetarian recipes, while the third features household tips.
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