Thanksgiving is a time to reflect on gratitude, family, and, of course, food.

As we approach the holiday, I couldn’t help but reflect on just how far we’ve come.

In the early 1600s, when the Pilgrims and native Americans gathered for what we now remember as the “First Thanksgiving,” refrigeration didn’t exist, nor did the electrical grid.

They didn’t have a refrigerator humming quietly in the kitchen. There was no electric oven, no cranberry sauce, no containers of whipped cream waiting in the fridge.

They hunted their food, smoked or dried it for preservation, and cooked it over open flames. If anything needed to be kept cool, it was stored in a cellar or packed in snow. Butter had to be made. Cheese, too. You gathered your own milk.

That’s a far cry from today’s world, where our big

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