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May 2, 2024 · So how did the Indians and Pilgrims eat all this food? Not with a fork, which hadn’t debuted on the dining room table yet. Guests sliced off their own portions of meat with a knife. Spoons, wood plates, bowls, and large linen napkins were used. Napkins were also used as hot pads to handle hot meats during the early days of Plymouth.
- Thanksgiving Turkey
- Fruits and Vegetables
- Fish and Shellfish
- Potatoes
- Pumpkin Pie
- Who Attended The First Thanksgiving?
While no records exist of the exact bill of fare, the Pilgrim chronicler Edward Winslow noted in his journal that the colony’s governor, William Bradford, sent four men on a “fowling” mission in preparation for the three-day event: Turkey or no turkey, the first Thanksgiving’s attendees almost certainly got their fill of meat. Winslow wrote that th...
The 1621 Thanksgivingcelebration marked the Pilgrims’ first autumn harvest, so it is likely that the colonists feasted on the bounty they had reaped with the help of their Native American neighbors. Local vegetables that likely appeared on the table include onions, beans, lettuce, spinach, cabbage, carrots and perhaps peas. Corn, which records show...
Culinary historians believe that much of the Thanksgiving meal consisted of seafood, which is often absent from today’s menus. Mussels in particular were abundant in New England and could be easily harvested because they clung to rocks along the shoreline. The colonists occasionally served mussels with curds, a dairy product with a similar consiste...
Whether mashed or roasted, white or sweet, potatoes had no place at the first Thanksgiving. After encountering it in its native South America, the Spanish began introducing the potato to Europeans around 1570. But by the time the Pilgrims boarded the Mayflower, the tuber had neither doubled back to North America nor become popular enough with the E...
Both the Pilgrims and members of the Wampanoag tribe ate pumpkinsand other squashes indigenous to New England—possibly even during the harvest festival—but the fledgling colony lacked the butter and wheat flour necessary for making pie crust. Moreover, settlers hadn’t yet constructed an oven for baking. According to some accounts, early English set...
At the first Thanksgiving, colonists were likely outnumbered more than two to one by the Native Americans in attendance. Winslow writes: “many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men.” In fact, the Indigenous people at the feast would have been familiar with the tradition of “thanks...
4 days ago · What the Pilgrims Ate at the First Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving today often features familiar staples: turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. While beloved, these dishes differ significantly from those served at the Pilgrims' Thanksgiving. Many ingredients and flavors from 17th-century feasts would feel foreign to modern diners.
- Michele Debczak
- Green Bean Casserole. Much of the produce associated with Thanksgiving wasn’t present at the Pilgrims’ dinner table. That likely includes green beans, and green bean casserole certainly didn’t make an appearance at the first Thanksgiving dinner.
- Pumpkin Pie. Pumpkin pie wasn’t served for dessert at the first Thanksgiving—nor was any pie, for that matter. The Pilgrims probably didn’t have access to many of the things needed to make pie crust, including butter, flour, and ovens.
- Gravy. No flour also meant no gravy to go with the venison and waterfowl on the table. Though it’s possible the cooks saved drippings from the meat, it wouldn’t have been the traditional, thickened gravy we know today.
- Cranberry Sauce. Another ingredient missing from the Pilgrims’ pantries was sugar. Without it, they wouldn’t have been able to cook down the cranberries that grew in Massachusetts into a sweet sauce.
- Turkey. There’s a good chance the Pilgrims and Wampanoag did in fact eat turkey as part of that very first Thanksgiving. Wild turkey was a common food source for people who settled Plymouth.
- Mashed Potatoes. Keep dreaming. At the time the Pilgrims celebrated their first Thanksgiving, most Europeans had never even seen a potato, let alone learned to mash them and drown them in gravy.
- Cranberry Sauce. By fall 1621, the Pilgrims were essentially out of sugar. Translation—no cranberry sauce. Even with sugar, the Pilgrims still wouldn’t have used it to sauce cranberries.
- Corn. It’s very, very likely the Pilgrims and Wampanoag ate corn for the first Thanksgiving—but not the frozen kind that you heat up in the microwave (obviously).
The first Thanksgiving was a harvest celebration held by the pilgrims of Plymouth colony in the 17th century. Many myths surround the first Thanksgiving. Very little is actually known about the event because only two firsthand accounts of the feast were ever written. The first account is William Bradford's journal…
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Once the Pilgrims had settled themselves in Plymouth, they slowly began to learn about other food sources. The bay was full of fish, although the Pilgrims had poorly equipped themselves for fishing. There were clams, mussels, and other shellfish that could be gathered, and the bay was also full of lobster.
