Just a few generations ago, we were far better connected to our food than we are today.

We grew most of our own vegetables, put up seasonal fruits in our own kitchens, and struck off into the woods to find wild edibles or hunt wild game.Back then, we didn't need an environmental movement to talk about protecting air, water and soil. We understood the importance of these resources, because we saw our food chains in action. It was a lot easier to see the connections between planet and plate.Today, some of our food is so highly processed, it's difficult to tell where it comes from. Gummy fruit snacks and chicken nuggets bear little resemblance to the plants and animals they once were, and if we know anything about the evils of industrial food production, we much prefer to keep it that way.But Thanksgiving was different. It's the one day each year when food is celebrated as part of nature's bounty, and each dish is easily recognizable as a once-living thing.We Pennsylvanians share some special connections with the holiday feast, as much of what's on the table can be found in abundance somewhere in a nearby forest or field.The turkey is a good example. With its drumsticks and wings, and the little bag of internal organs a good cook can use to flavor the gravy, it's hard to forget this was once a live bird. Domestic turkeys are, in fact, the same species that's roamed the commonwealth since before the first settlers.Wild turkeys are sleek, slender birds, lacking the extra weight of their domestic counterparts. Rather than a fattening diet of commercial feed, they graze on buds, seeds, leaves and acorns. Their stellar eyesight helps in spotting the ticks, spiders and insects that supply extra protein, and add to the slightly "gamy" flavor of the bird.Since they sometimes rely on of quick bursts of powerful flight to avoid predators, the breast muscles of wild turkeys are richly supplied with blood vessels. The "white meat" isn't very white on a wild bird, tending to be darker and denser.The mild flavor of a store-bought turkey balances perfectly with the tang of traditional cranberry sauce. Here again, a wild counterpart is fairly common throughout the Northeast, where acid soils provide perfect growing conditions for the wild cranberry.Television portrayals of cranberry harvests, with ripened fruit bobbing in the water, lead some to believe the plant is aquatic. In fact, cranberries grow on low evergreen shrubs. Commercial fields are flooded at harvest time, making for easy collection of the buoyant fruit.Tannersville's Cranberry Bog in Monroe County is such a unique and delicate ecosystem, it was one of the first afforded protection by the Nature Conservancy.Though the bog was named for the Cranberry Creek that runs through it rather than the plant, wild cranberries can be found there, as in similar wet, acid soils. Cranberries flower in summer as delicate, nodding, pale-pink blossoms.But for some, the best way to connect any special dinner with the wilds of Pennsylvania, is to include that one simple, yet coveted ingredient - the one that imparts a flavor like no other - the mushroom.The button mushroom, the variety often found in the produce aisle, is common in the wild. It belongs to an expansive group of mushrooms known as Agaricus (uh-JAIR-ik-us), with an estimated 300 species worldwide.Wild button mushrooms range throughout North America, and have a nuttier flavor than their grocery store cousins. Often called the "meadow mushroom," wild Agaricus may resemble the deadly poisonous "death angel" mushroom to the novice. They should be identified with certainty before eating.In order to help you connect with the wild side of Thanksgiving dinner, Carbon County Environmental Education Center offers "Leftovers," a program where participants are invited to learn about avian anatomy by examining a leftover turkey carcass. For more information call 570-645-8597.