By Rosemary Fetter
As we sit down to Thanksgiving dinner this year, despite recent economic woes, Americans have much for which to be grateful. The Pilgrims would have been astounded by foods we take for granted – frozen Butterball turkeys, rolls, canned, frozen and fresh fruits and vegetables, butter (or some healthier substitute) and even pumpkin pie mix and cranberry sauce. Add to that modern refrigeration, microwave and electric ovens, food processors and a host of other culinary equipment, plus the proximity of the nearest grocery store, and you have an easily prepared Thanksgiving dinner that would have amazed our foremothers.
The “traditional” Thanksgiving menu – roast turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie and the ubiquitous green bean casserole – hasn’t changed much in the past century or so. The original feast consumed by the Pilgrims and Wampanoag Native Americans in 1621 was quite different, however.
Only two accounts remain of that original celebration, when 56 settlers and 91 Native Americans enjoyed the first potluck in American history. The first, a diary kept by colonist Edward Winslow, states that the four men Governor William Bradford sent “fowling” returned with “a great store of wild turkies.” Although wild turkeys did abound in the Northeast, the colonists may have brought back seasonal waterfowl such as ducks and geese. The Pilgrims called anything with a featherless head and a round body a turkey.
That first “turkie” may have been stuffed after all, since the English occasionally filled cavities in their fish and meat with oats and/or onions. Some dried herbs might also have been available to add to the flavor, such as marjoram, parsley and thyme. Chief Massasoit provided five deer for the spread, which was added to an ample supply of lobsters, eels, cod, bass and mussels. Fruit was plentiful, including white and red grapes, strawberries, gooseberries and plums.
A second description of the menu, written about twenty years after the fact, hints that vegetables (called “herbs”) were available, both fresh and dried. They likely included parsnips, collards, carrots, turnips, spinach and cabbage. Other items native to the area could have been served, such as walnuts, acorns and chestnuts. Watercress and leeks were on the table, but there was no milk or butter since no cows had booked passage on the Mayflower (They actually made their appearance two years later with the arrival of the ship Queen Anne). Although pumpkins grew in the area, “pie” was out, since stores of flour from the ship were long gone. The creative cooks put together a type of bread made of boiled corn, kneaded into round cakes and fried in venison fat.
According to many historical sources, that first Thanksgiving dinner included the following:
Seethed [boiled] Lobster, Roasted Goose, Boiled Turkey, Pudding of Indian Corn Meal with dried whortleberries, Seethed Cod, Roasted Duck, Stewed Pumpkin, Roasted Venison with Mustard Sauce, Savory Pudding of Hominy, Fruit and possibly Holland Cheese.
Although the Wampanoag normally ate sitting on furs on the ground, they joined Pilgrims at the table for this occasion. They ate with spoons and knives (no forks) on wooden plates. Although the Native American men and women ate together, the six Pilgrim women (who had just prepared a meal for 150) had to stand behind the men and wait until they were finished.
For entertainment, Capt. Myles Standish provided a parade of soldiers blasting their muskets and trumpeting bugles. The braves competed against the settlers in foot races and jumping matches, the Native American men demonstrated their prowess with a bow and arrow, and the Pilgrims exhibited their skills with a musket.
The six women cleaned up the tables and likely collapsed from exhaustion.
