Thanksgiving: Pilgrim Style
By: Samantha Ranck
Imagine sitting down to a Thanksgiving feast without the cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie! That was what the colonists at Plymouth had to do. In 1621, between September 21 and November 11, the colonists of Plymouth and the Wampanoag Indian braves sat down to a feast which people commonly refer to as the “first Thanksgiving”.
Actually, on the first Thanksgiving they didn’t even think of it as Thanksgiving, but a fall festival. Thanksgiving would have been spent in church and praying. At this event there were games, food, and dancing. It also lasted three days.
The food at the first Thanksgiving was somewhat different than our view of it. “They probably had turkey, potatoes, vegetables, bread, sweets and water,” said Jenna Derstein, a student at Belleville Mennonite School. Actually ham, potatoes (sweet and regular), corn on the cob, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, chicken, eggs and milk were not available to the colonists. This is because they didn’t think ham or potatoes were safe to eat. Since they had just come across the ocean, no one had cows and sugar was unavailable.
The pilgrims had a wide variety of foods served at their feast. In their seafood selection they might have had cod, eel, clams, and lobster. Because there were so many hunters it was possible that they had turkey, goose, duck, crane, swan, partridge, eagles, venison, and seal. Other dishes such as Indian corn, pumpkin, peas, beans, onions, lettuce, radishes, carrots, plums, grapes, walnuts, chestnuts, and acorns were served.
Another thanksgiving was not until 200 years later when Abraham Lincoln announced that the last Thursday in November would be considered a day of thanksgiving. He may have connected this with the fall festival of 1621. Finally, on the fourth Thursday of November in 1939 President Franklin D. Roosevelt set the date as Thanksgiving. Two years later it was approved by Congress.
Information used in this article was obtained from the website, www.history.com/minisites/thanksgiving/