IStock Photo 10942963 © Stacey Newman

From boars’ heads to Arabian sweetmeats to Emperor Charlemagne’s asbestos tablecloth, feasting has a rich history. We’ve feasted to exert power and jockey for social standing, to leverage political will, to reconcile, to celebrate the turn of the season or the reap of harvest, to mark a rite of passage, or to simply express generosity and carry on our cultural traditions.

Nichola Fletcher, the author of a book on feasting, Charlemagne’s Tablecloth, writes that feasting is the “ultimate transient art.” But as to whether this art form is an “exquisite refinement” or represents “gargantuan excess,” she says, depends on who you ask.

Even in a land of plenty Americans like to feast—and Thanksgiving is our favorite day for it. The odds are 1 in 2.17 that a person will expect to eat too much on Thanksgiving. Overeating is a characteristic of the harvest feast, says Fletcher, and it could be hard-wired: “When people were or are in a perpetual situation of not knowing where the next food will come from,” she says, then when food is made available, “you just eat as much as you possibly can.” This “panic-eating” programming stays with us, Fletcher notes, “even when we in the West are no longer in a potential famine situation.” Quoting John Taylor (1630), Fletcher says people tend to carry on eating “until [their] guts crack.”

And while a lot of people may be planning to eat until it hurts, a percentage of them also plan to burn it off. Odds are 1 in 3.23 that a person plans to exercise on Thanksgiving. USA Today gives web surfers a tool to total their caloric load on the big day—a talking turkey tells listeners that their turkey and gravy, mashed potatoes, candied yams, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and coffee with cream will cost them 1,476 calories and will take approximately three hours and forty-one minutes to walk it all off.

What dishes will bend the groaning board for the American Feast? When asked to name their favorite Thanksgiving food, 1 in 2.04 people chose turkey, according to a Gallup Poll. The competition was fierce among the carbohydrates, with mashed potatoes edging dessert 1 in 20to 1 in 33.33. Salad finished a distant 1 in 100.

Whatever (and however much) we pile on our plates this Thanksgiving, the foods of the feast continue to connect us to years past and people present.