Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. The harvest festival version, not the weird colonial fiction we learned in school. I’m about to get on the road back to Pennsylvania to celebrate with my mom’s cooking. I’m bringing dessert.

In other words, I’m going from unceded Nacotchtank/Anacostian/Piscataway land to unceded Susquehannock land. And let’s remember the many parts of today’s meal that come from this land, not Europe: turkeys. Potatoes. Squash/pumpkin. Corn. Green beans. Sweet potatoes.

Our holiday meal would not exist, in other words, with Native American agriculture. None of these plants were found wild and cultivated by colonists. They were already cultivated crops bred over thousands of years from their wild ancestors.

So say thanks to them today, too. Especially since some of them did indeed generously share seeds and growing methods with the colonists who later betrayed them.

Also good people to thank: the Black chefs, enslaved and free, who invented many of the recipes we enjoy on days like this, especially in the south