Thanksgiving Food Then and Now
If food can be the defining marker of a tradition, the food we eat at Thanksgiving is a good representative. The menu in the Pilgrims’ Thanksgiving dinner mentions such delicacies as eel, cod, bass, radishes and Indian corn. Later on, when the Wampanoag chief, Massasoit, brought his unexpected guests, 90 of them to be exact, they needed extra food, and the guests brought five deer. They brought back deer probably in order to show the newcomers that there were better sources of food than those they had already seen.
Since venison was only mentioned as the Indians contribution to the fare, the conclusion we can draw is that the Pilgrims did not know how to catch or kill deer. The Indians, with their greater knowledge of the forests and the game that could be found, were thus sharing their knowledge with the newcomers. The pilgrims that were sent fowling brought back enough of the birds to prepare a nutritious meal. Easily caught fish such as cod and bass supplemented the meal. Indian corn and radishes were also on the table, and these two elements, a cereal and a vegetable, made for a nutritious meal, by any standards.
Today’s turkey and pumpkin pie would be just at home on the table at that first Thanksgiving dinner. The hungry settler would be surprised at first, perhaps, at the sight of deep fried turkey fillets but would settle down when he saw roasted turkey. Nothing on the Thanksgiving table would seem strange to him. The Pilgrims did not have ovens, but in their former homeland, they would have been familiar with pies and other baked dishes.
The food we eat at Thanksgiving is thus an opportune acknowledgment of the debt we owe the first settlers and their Indian friends in culinary matters. The fact that no mention is made in the journal of English or European foods is an indication that the future nation had already begun to forge its own identity.
Incoming search terms:
- thanksgiving now and then
- Thanksgiving Then and Now
- thanksgiving food then and now
- thanksgiving back then
- thanksgiving food back then
- thanksgiving foods then and now
- Thanksgiving food now and then
- thanksgiving food now
- thanksgiving food info
- thanksgiving dinner then and now