Giving Thanks: Apalachee and Spanish Cooking at Mission San Luis

Tallahassee –

On Saturday, November 29, 2014, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mission San Luis invites the public to demonstrations of culinary traditions at Tallahassee’s only National Historic Landmark. Visitors can learn how people and foods from the New and Old Worlds came together to create a unique cuisine. The event will feature:

• Living history interpreters in period dress demonstrating cooking over a fire pit and smoking meat and fish on a barbacoa
• Demonstration of the use of native and European plants from the Mission’s gardens and fields
• Crafts and historic food preparation activities for children
• Hands-on archery and atlatl activities for all ages
• Vendors with food available for purchase

“As you spend time in the kitchen Thanksgiving week, imagine there is no grocery store around the corner, and no refrigerator to keep foods fresh. Now imagine how grateful you would be when your crops and livestock thrived and ships arrived with goods not available locally,” said Secretary of State Ken Detzner. “The Saturday after Thanksgiving, experience another time with demonstrations of colonial-era cooking at Mission San Luis with the seventh annual Giving Thanks.”

Mission San Luis was the western capital of Spanish Florida from 1656 to 1704. Today Florida’s Apalachee-Spanish Living History Museum brings the early 1700s to life with reenactors, reconstructed period buildings, exhibits, and archaeological research. The site is part of the Florida Department of State, Division of Historical Resources, Bureau of Archaeological Research, with support provided by the Friends of Mission San Luis, Inc.

Mission San Luis is located at 2100 West Tennessee Street in Tallahassee, Florida, and is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for seniors 65+, $2 for ages 6-17, and free for members, children under 6, and active duty military. For more information, please call 850.245.6406 or visit missionsanluis.org.

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About Mission San Luis

Florida’s Apalachee-Spanish Living History Museum was the western capital of Spanish Florida from 1656 to 1704. Today, the Mission brings the early 1700s to life with living history interpreters in period dress, reconstructed period buildings, exhibits, and archaeological research. The site is managed by the Florida Department of State, Division of Historical Resources, Bureau of Archaeological Research, and support is provided by the Friends of Mission San Luis, Inc. Mission San Luis is Tallahassee’s only National Historic Landmark. Mission San Luis is located at 2100 West Tennessee Street in Tallahassee, Florida, and is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mission San Luis is pet-friendly to animals on leashes all year round.