Turkey,
dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, and cranberry sauce, along with
pumpkin, pecan, and apple pies. These are the makings of a
traditional Thanksgiving feast just like the Pilgrims and Indians
enjoyed in 1621- right? Well, actually, no.
The
Pilgrims were giving thanks because they had just barely survived a
period of near starvation. They were, after all, English colonists
struggling to survive in a new world then utterly devoid of the crops
and food sources available in England. While pumpkins grew in the
area, the Pilgrims had no sugar or flour in 1621: no pies- pumpkin or
otherwise- were served. Ditto for cranberry sauce: it would be
another 50 years before some inventive colonist, with sugar finally
on hand, created that concoction.
The
vegetables served were limited to those grown by the local Wampanoag
Tribe- and they did not include potatoes. In 1621, most Europeans and
Native North Americans had never even seen a potato, let alone
learned to mash them and drown them in gravy. Potatoes come from the
high Andes of South America and weren’t cultivated in North America
until the 1700s. So, mashed potatoes are not an original Thanksgiving
side dish.
As
for meat, turkey might not have even been present at the first
Thanksgiving. Other local wild game was probably served. No flour
meant no bread stuffing: wild onions and nuts may have been used.
Seafood- rare on modern Thanksgiving tables- was plentiful in the
local bay, but in cold weather, it consisted of shellfish and some
other marine life we moderns wouldn’t consider very appetizing. It
was the 90 Native American guests who provided the feast’s main
course: five deer that they offered as a gift to the settlers.
All
of which means contrary to modern traditions, the menu for the
Pilgrims’ first Thanksgiving probably looked something like this:
Venison
Eel, lobster, mussels
Duck, Goose, Swan, Carrier Pigeons
Racoon, Rabbit, Squirrel
Squash, Beans, Peas, Flint Corn
Pumpkin- boiled in water or fire-roasted
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