Like all things American, The First ThanksgivingTM is heavily mythologized in our culture. Everyone knows the story: Pilgrims and Squanto, funny hats and turkey, a meal shared in thanks to “Almighty God” between the Wampanoags and the religious radicals. Plymouth Rock. Buckles. Eagles flying overhead while “God Bless America” played in the background.
In fact, “Thanksgiving” is itself a phrase that we’ve squarely got our arms around. Never mind that many other countries have thanksgiving feasts – not the least of which, Canada, and a full month+ earlier at that.
Even the meal (meals, actually… it was a three-day celebration) was mythologized. Turkey. Pumpkin pie. Bread. Corn. Freedom.
While the Puritans didn’t make menu cards (God must’ve said it was gauche), we do have records of the days leading up to the event, as well as records of what food they had available to them, whether by growing, hunting or foraging:
"Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruits of our labors; they four in one day killed as much fowl, as with a little help beside, served the Company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others.” - Edward Winslow
“And besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides, they had about a peck a meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to that proportion.” - William Bradford
“Our bay is full of lobsters all the summer and affordeth variety of other fish; in September we can take a hogshead of eels in a night with small labor, and can dig them out of their beds all the winter. We have mussels... at our doors. Oysters we have none near, but we can have them brought by the Indians when we will.” - Edward Winslow
Most historians agree that the meal certainly included wild fowl, venison and corn – in some form. Everything else is largely conjecture, based on these sources and what we know about the culture of the Wampanoags.
Historians guess that the meal also included eels and shellfish as main proteins. If there was stuffing for any of the fowl, it likely was made from chestnuts.
The Wampanoags grew corn, beans, pumpkins and various squashes. A key part of the myth goes that they taught the colonists to garden on American soil. Later sources mention more vegetables, but most historians count on the Pilgrims’ gardens holding only the basics at the time of The First ThanksgivingTM.
Bread? Sort of. Corn would’ve been ground and used to make either porridge or cakes (or both, I guess). They had no wheat flour at this time, so they definitely didn’t have loaves of white bread. Paired with the fact that they weren’t yet producing butter and you can also eliminate any sort of crusted pie. Custards – especially baked inside a pumpkin – are a possibility. The sugar reserves were most likely fully depleted, so it would’ve been savory. (That rules cranberry sauce out of the meal. The process of cooking it wasn’t written down for half a century after the meal itself, anyway.)
Things they certainly did not have? Potatoes and sweet potatoes. The first potato patches weren’t established until 1719. Sweet potatoes appeared in the area a little earlier (1648ish!) but still after the famous meal(s).
And they probably drank water. Beer would’ve been in short supply.
What? No spanikopita? No moussaka??
My childhood is a lie. 😮
I'm pulling for some kind of a boiled pudding, given their cultural background. Something to simulate "plum pudding". Hasty pudding is made from cornmeal and although it doesn't resemble a plum pudding in form, I can see it paving the way for a corn-based boiled pudding.
Good news for any undiagnosed Celiac disease sufferers in their midst.