Traditional Thanksgiving Dinner

While shopping for our annual Turkey Feast-second annual for my family, (no, we did not just arrive in this country and no, we were not boycotting the holiday because of political beliefs, but because we had been vegetarian for 16 ½ years- that’s a long story for another day)   I overheard a woman telling someone she was just getting cabbage to make coleslaw because her church was making a traditional Thanksgiving meal and I thought….hmmmm…coleslaw?  I would put that in a traditional EASTER meal, but have never had it for Thanksgiving, which led me to think about what everyone considered a traditional Thanksgiving meal.  

Growing up my mother always made the standard turkey,regular Stove Top and oyster stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, sweet potatoes or yams, carrots and other assorted vegetables, biscuits, cranberry sauce (the jellied can shaped kind, of course) and mmmm…pumpkin pie.   And that pretty much stayed the same for me as an adult except we used either  Quorn chik’n cutlets or a Tofurkey, both of which are quite delicious and even meat eaters should try them, and our stuffing was homemade vegetarian stuffing. To me these are the foods to eat on the fourth Thursday of November, but are they traditional?

 

 

 

 

 

If you know anything about me by now, you would know that I can not just leave it at that, I had to research the answer. It appears that for the past 200 years, Americans have generally stuck to Turkey, potatoes; mashed and sweet, stuffing, gravy, biscuits, carrots and other root vegetables,corn, cranberry sauce and pie, but that is NOT what the pilgrims and the Wampanoags had on their three day harvest festival.

 

TURKEY?

Turkey was likely there, as Governor Bradford had written about their first autumn in the new world,  “there was a great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc.”  Edward Winslow wrote that four men went hunting and brought back large amounts of fowl. These very likely included ducks, swans, geese, passenger pigeons, turkeys and even eagles.   It is also in the first hand accounts that the Wampanoags brought five deer to the occasion.

POTATOES?

Potatoes, however, a staple in many American Thanksgivings,as well as a lot of everyday meals, was not a native crop and had not been brought to America at this time, so mashed potatoes or sweet potatoes would not have been at this first harvest meal.

STUFFING?

The pilgrims did not have ovens at their first Thanksgiving,so bread was not available to make stuffing, but they did stuff their birds,even the small ones. They used onions and herbs which flavored the birds wonderfully.

CORN?

The pilgrims and Wampanoags did have corn, but not as we know it.  The corn that they had was course and multicolored, the corn we use as decoration today, Indian Corn or FlintCorn. This corn was crushed and made into meal and then turned into a porridge,pancakes and or corn bread type food, very different from what we know as cornbread today and since their was no dairy there at this time, it did not come with butter on the side.

CARROTS? OTHER VEGETABLES?

Dried and fresh vegetables would have been available for this three day feast.  The pilgrimscalled these herbs and included carrots, turnips, spinach, cabbages, onions, parsley,sage, thyme, (just missing rosemary- sorry I cant type those words without singing Scarborough Fair) and marjoram.

They also very likely had dried beans of different varieties,dried berries like blueberries, gooseberrys, cranberries, and  strawberries, plums  and grapes and various nuts that were available in America such as chestnuts, beechnuts and walnuts.

CRANBERRY SAUCE?

As we do know cranberries were available and if they were served,it was probably in the Wampanoags dishes and were most likely tart, not sweet.  As cooking cranberries with sugar was a known recipe at this time in England, with the cost of sugar and the availability to the pilgrims, it is highly unlikely they were able to make this sauce.

PUMPKIN PIE?

Unfortunately, the party-goers at this first celebration did not have pumpkin pie. Pumpkins, yes, pie, no. They had no butter or flour for a crust. In fact, the recipe for pumpkin pie was not even created until decades later and was not the pie we know today but rather more like an apple pie with sliced pieces of pumpkin, fried and then placed in the crust. Speaking of apples….there were none of those either. They, neither, are native to American soil.

SEAFOOD???

That’s right! And it makes sense, too.  The first Thanksgiving meal most likely included eels, mussels, bass, lobster, cod, salmon and oyster which Massasoit and the Wampanoags would bring to the new settlers.

I realize Thanksgiving is only 2 days away, but maybe next year, if you want a REAL traditional Thanksgiving, you can celebrate with three days of Thanksgiving with the foods that they ate at the very first American Thanksgiving!

Try this updated, more palatable version of Indian CornPudding:

http://www.squidoo.com/pilgrim-thanksgiving-recipes

Indian Pudding - A Sweet Ending

A Sweet Corn Bread Pudding

The Pilgrims did not serve dessert separately. They put the dessert type dishes out with the rest of the food. Today, Indian Pudding is frequently served with ice cream on the side. My recipe here is a twist, I've added pumpkin to the recipe.

Pumpkin Indian Pudding

Ingredients:

1 quart plus 1 cup milk
1/2 cup Indian meal (aka cornmeal)
1/2 cup molasses
1/2 cup canned pumpkin
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1 tablespoon butter
*Ice cream

Instructions:

Combine the cornmeal with 1/2 cup cold milk and add this to the hot milk stirring very well! In a baking dish blend together molasses, pumpkin, sugar, eggs, salt, spices, butter and remaining 1/2 cup of milk. Bring a quart of milk to its boiling point but do not go into rapid boil. Add the cornmeal mixture to the baking dish spreading out evenly. Bake for 3 hours at 300 degrees F. Serve while hot and with ice cream on the side.