Partakers of Our Plenty

Our modern holiday fare bears little
resemblance to the food eaten at the
three-day 1621 harvest celebration at
Plymouth Colony, the event now recalled
as the “First Thanksgiving.”

The Wampanoag and Plymouth
colonists often ate wild turkey; however, it
was not specifically mentioned in
connection with that 1621 harvest
celebration. Edward Winslow said only
that four men went hunting and brought
back large amounts of “fowl”—more likely
from the scenario to be seasonal
waterfowl such as ducks and geese. And
what about the stuffing? Yes, the
Wampanoag and English did occasionally
stuff the birds and fish, typically with
herbs, onions or oats (English only).

If cranberries were served at the harvest
celebration, they appeared in Wampanoag
dishes, or possibly to add tartness to an
English sauce. It would be 50 years before
an Englishman mentioned boiling this
New England berry with sugar for a
“Sauce to eat with… Meat.” In 1621
England, sugar was expensive; in 1621
New Plymouth, there may not have been
any of this imported spice at all.

Potatoes, which had originated in South
America, had not yet made their way into
the diet of the Wampanoag in 1621
(though the Wampanoag did eat other
local varieties of tubers). By 1621,
potatoes, both sweet and white, had
traveled across the Atlantic to Europe but
they had not been generally adopted into
the English diet. The sweet potato,
originating in the Caribbean, was
cultivated in Spain and imported into
England. It was a rare dainty available to
the wealthy, who believed it to be a potent
aphrodisiac. The white potato was
virtually unknown by the average early
17th-century Englishman. Only a few
gentlemen botanists and gardeners were
trying to grow this colonial oddity.

But surely there was pumpkin pie to
celebrate the harvest? Pumpkin—
probably yes, but pie—probably not.
Pumpkins and squashes were native to
New England. Certain varieties had been
introduced from the Americas into
Europe by 1500 where they gained
widespread acceptance (as had turkey,
another New World native). In Plymouth,
the specific American varieties were new
to the colonists, but hardly exotic.
However, the fledgling Plymouth Colony
probably did not possess the ingredients
to make piecrust (butter & wheat flour)
nor an oven in which to bake it. The
now-familiar custardy pumpkin pie, made
with pureed pumpkin, was several
generations away from invention. The
earliest written recipes for pumpkin pie
came after 1621, and those treated the
pumpkin more like apples, slicing it and
sometimes frying the slices before placing
them in a crust. (There were no apples in
1621 Plymouth, either. Apples are not
native to North America.)

The typical menu of Thanksgiving
dinner is actually more than 200 years
younger than that 1621 celebration and
reflects both the holiday’s New England
roots and a Victorian nostalgia for an
imaginary time when hearth and home,
family and community, were valued over
progress and change. But while we have
been able to work out which modern
dishes were not available in 1621, just
what was served is a tougher nut to crack.
The only contemporary description of the
event by Edward Winslow tells us that
they had seasonal wild fowl and the
venison brought by the Wampanoag and
presented to key Englishmen.

Another source describing the colonial
diet that autumn said “besides waterfowl,
there was great store of wild turkeys, of
which they took many, besides venison,
etc. Besides they had… since harvest,
Indian corn.”1

While many elements of the modern
holiday menu are very different from the
foods eaten in 1621, the bounty of the
New England autumn was clearly the
basis for both. The impulse to share
hospitality with others and celebrate and
give thanks for abundance transcends the
menu. Edward Winslow’s final comment
about the harvest of 1621, is a sentiment
shared by many Americans on
Thanksgiving Day: And although it be not
always so plentiful as it was at this time
with us, yet by the goodness of God, we
are so far from want that we often wish
you partakers of our plenty.2 EK