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Some information about the first foods the Pilgrims enjoyed.

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What was on the menu at the first Thanksgiving?

What was on the menu at the first Thanksgiving?

Assign to Google Classroom

Today, the traditional Thanksgiving dinner includes any number of dishes. Turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes. Candied yams, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. They are all there. If we were to create a historically correct feast made up of foods that were served at the so-called "first Thanksgiving," there would be slimmer pickings.

"Wildfowl was there. Corn, in grain form for bread or for porridge, was there. Venison was there," says Kathleen Wall.

Two primary sources confirm that these staples were part of the harvest celebration shared by the Pilgrims and Wampanoag at Plymouth Colony in 1621. Edward Winslow is an English leader who attended. He wrote home to a friend:

"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 fruit of our labors. 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."

William Bradford is the governor that Winslow mentions. He also described the autumn of 1621. He added, "And besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc."

Determining what else they might have eaten at the 17th-century feast takes some digging. Wall is a culinarian at Plimoth Plantation. It is a living history museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts. To form educated guesses about history, she studies cookbooks and descriptions of gardens from the period. She also looks at archaeological remains such as pollen samples. They might clue her in to what the colonists were growing.

Turkey was not the heart of the meal. It's possible the colonists and American Indians cooked wild turkey. But Wall thinks that goose or duck was more likely.

Small birds were often spit-roasted. Larger birds were boiled.

"I also think some birds were boiled first. Then roasted to finish them off. Or things are roasted first and then boiled," says Wall. "The early roasting gives them nicer flavor. It sort of caramelizes them on the outside and makes the broth darker."

It is possible that the birds were stuffed. If so, it probably was not with bread. Bread was made from maize not wheat. But, it was likely a part of the meal. Exactly how it was made is unknown. The Pilgrims instead stuffed birds with chunks of onion and herbs. "There is a wonderful stuffing for goose in the 17th-century that is just shelled chestnuts," says Wall.

In addition to wildfowl and deer, the colonists and Wampanoag probably ate eels and shellfish. The shellfish might have included lobster. Or clams and mussels. "They were drying shellfish and smoking other sorts of fish," says Wall.

According to Wall, the Wampanoag had a "varied and extremely good diet." That is like most eastern woodlands people. The forest provided chestnuts, walnuts and beechnuts. "They grew flint corn. And that was their staple. They grew beans, which they used from when they were small and green until when they were mature," says Wall. "They also had different sorts of pumpkins or squashes."

As we are taught in school, the Indians showed the colonists how to plant native crops. "The English colonists plant gardens in March of 1620 and 1621," says Wall. "We don't know exactly what's in those gardens. But in later sources, they talk about turnips. And they talk about carrots, onions, garlic and pumpkins as the sorts of things that they were growing."
The exercise of remaking the spread of food at the 1621 celebration becomes a process of elimination. "You look at what an English celebration in England is at this time. What are the things on the table? You see lots of pies in the first course. And in the second course, meat and fish pies. To cook a turkey in a pie was not terribly uncommon," says Wall.

"But it is like, no, the pastry isn't there." The colonists did not have butter and wheat flour to make crusts for pies and tarts. That's right: No pumpkin pie! "That is a blank in the table for an English eye. So what are they putting on instead? I think meat, meat and more meat," says Wall.

Meat without potatoes, that is. White potatoes originated in South America and sweet potatoes are from the Caribbean. They had yet to make it to North America. There also would have been no cranberry sauce. It would be another 50 years before an Englishman wrote about boiling cranberries and sugar into a "Sauce to eat with meat."

How did the Thanksgiving menu become what it is today?

Wall explains that the current Thanksgiving holiday took root in the mid-19th century. It was then that Edward Winslow's letter was printed in a pamphlet called Mourt's Relation. And Gov. Bradford's manuscript, titled Of Plimoth Plantation, was rediscovered and published.

Boston clergyman Alexander Young printed Winslow's letter in his Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers. In the notes to the revived letter, he called the feast the first Thanksgiving. There was longing for colonial times. And by the 1850s, most states and territories were celebrating Thanksgiving.

Sarah Josepha Hale was the editor of the women's magazine Godey's Lady's Book. It was a leading voice in making Thanksgiving a yearly event. She shared her idea with President Lincoln. She saw it as a way to unite the country in the midst of the Civil War. In 1863, he made Thanksgiving a national holiday.

Hale printed Thanksgiving recipes and menus in Godey's Lady's Book. She also published close to a dozen cookbooks.

"A lot of the food that we think of like roast turkey with sage dressing, creamed onions and mashed turnips. Even some of the mashed potato dishes, which were kind of exotic then are there," said Wall.
Source URL: https://www.tweentribune.com/article/tween56/what-was-menu-first-thanksgiving/
CRITICAL THINKING QUESTION

Why is our Thanksgiving menu different from the first Thanksgiving's menu?

Write your answers in the comments section below

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What was on the menu at the first Thanksgiving?

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What was on the menu at the first Thanksgiving? What was on the menu at the first Thanksgiving? Assign to Google Classroom Today, the traditional Thanksgiving dinner includes any number of dishes. Turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes. Candied yams, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. They are all there.

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On Epic, the book is called Jamestown: The First English Colony by Susan Sales and William H. Harkins.
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instant access to thousands of great kids books.

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Instantly access 40,000 high-quality books for kids

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The leading digital library for kids offering unlimited access to 40,000 of the best children's books of all time. Sign up for a free 30 day trial to instantly access high-quality online books for kids, ebooks, audio books, quizzes, videos, and more.

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The Virginia Company of Plymouth, a group of English merchant investors, had failed to establish permanent colonies in the northern reaches of what was then known as Virginia.

The stockholders' spirits were further dampened when they noticed that their chief rival, the Virginia Company of London, had established a settlement at Jamestown, where a lucrative tobacco economy began to develop in the late 1600s. Sir Edwin Sandys, a major figure in the Plymouth group, hoped to salvage some of his investment by convincing James I that he should allow a group of religious dissenters to settle on the companyâ€™s lands.

Earlier, in 1608, group of religious separatists from the English town of Scrooby had moved quietly to Amsterdam and Leiden, Holland, in search of religious freedom. Their journeys earned them the name "Pilgrim."

Despite their enjoyment of religious toleration, the separatists were denied entry to the lucrative Dutch guilds and found it hard to support themselves. They also were concerned about the fact that their children were growing up as young Dutch people and not adhering to their parentsâ€™ religious dictates.

Separatist leaders secured a land grant from Sandys in 1620, and embarked in the ship Mayflower for the New World in September. They arrived in November initially at Provincetown Bay and later settled at what became Plymouth.

The Pilgrims had intended to settle near the mouth of the Hudson River, but had been blown off course in stormy weather. Since they were well outside the confines of Virginia, the colonists sought to legitimize their venture by forming the Mayflower Compact.

The Pilgrims established their first home in an empty Indian village where the inhabitants had recently been wiped out by an epidemic. With typical religious certainty, the leaders concluded that God had cleared the site for his chosen people. During the first winter, adverse weather conditions and lack of food took a heavy toll among the original 102 colonists.

In 1621, the Pilgrims concluded a peace treaty with chief Massasoit of the neighboring Wampanoag tribe. The natives provided critical instruction on adaptation to the new environment, particularly in the cultivation of corn. That fall, following a successful harvest, the Pilgrims feasted with the Wampanoag in the first Thanksgiving celebration.

The Plymouth economy developed around trade in fish and furs. The sandy, rocky soil had made agriculture difficult, but basic crops were grown successfully.

Plymouth was never a prosperous settlement, but the religiously faithful were content to be ignored by English officials and left to direct their own affairs.

Plymouth remained a separate political entity until it was absorbed by the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 1691.

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The Virginia Company of Plymouth, a group of English merchant investors, had failed to establish permanent colonies in the northern reaches of what was then known as Virginia. The stockholders' spirits were further dampened when they noticed that their chief rival, the Virginia Company of London, had established a settlement at Jamestown, where a lucrative tobacco economy began to develop in the late 1600s.

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Several maps!

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View a Conjectural Plan of the
Fortified Town of Plymouth, 1622

Aerial View of Plimoth
Plantation Reconstruction

Samuel de Champlain's
Map of Plimoth, circa 1605

"A Map of New-England"
by William Hubbard, 1677

"A New Map of
New England," 1720

Reconstruction Sketch
of the "Pilgrim Village"
at Plimoth Plantation

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The Plymouth Colony Archive Project, Maps & Landscape

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This Plymouth Colony Archive presents a collection of searchable texts concerning the Plymouth Colony, 1620-1691. James F. Deetz, Patricia Scott Deetz and Christopher C. Fennell of the University of Virginia have created and maintain this archive. The texts include probate inventories, wills, biographical analyses, and topical analyses

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Jamestown on World Book Online. You will need your username and password information from your librarian.

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Take a virtual field trip at Plymouth Plantation!

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On Epic, the book is called The Jamestown Colony Disaster by Marcia Amidon Lusted.
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instant access to thousands of great kids books.

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Instantly access 40,000 high-quality books for kids

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The leading digital library for kids offering unlimited access to 40,000 of the best children's books of all time. Sign up for a free 30 day trial to instantly access high-quality online books for kids, ebooks, audio books, quizzes, videos, and more.

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You can also listen to this page being read aloud.

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Kids learn about the history of the Pilgrims and Plymouth Colony of Colonial America including the Mayflower voyage, establishing a Puritan settlement, their leaders, Squanto, the Native Americans, and Thanksgiving.

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Check out these great maps!

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The Original Maps

John Smith's Map of Virginia, 1608

John Smith's "Virginia" was originally published separately in London in 1612 and then in the 1612 Oxford publication of John Smith's A Map of Virginia: With a Description of the Countrey, the Commodities, People, Government and Religion. Subsequently it appeared in several other works by Smith and other commentators on Virginia. It remained the most influential map of Virginia until the last quarter of the 17th century and many of the place names used by Smith remain in use.

Medium Image | Large Image |Zoomable Image

John Smith's Map of Virginia, 1608 (Modified)

This is a version of the John Smith map modified by Edward Wright Haile (Globe Sales, c/o RoundHouse, P.O. Box 155, Champlain, Virginia, 22438-0155). He has removed much of the "busyness" of the original map, and added lines showing the two exploratory voyages taken by John Smith.

Large Image |Zoomable Image

Zuniga's James Fort, 1608

Vingboons Dutch chart, 1638

Florida et regiones vicinae, 1625

Virginiae item et Floridae, (Mercator, 1633)

Jamestown Fort, 1607

This map is found in the book Jamestown and St. Mary's: Buried Cities of Romance by Henry Chandlee Forman (Baltimore: The John Hopkins Press, 1938, pg. 39). He created an approximate reconstruction of the plans of the Fort based on early descriptions and the Pedro de Zuniga map shown above.

Large Image

Carta particolare della costa di Florida e di Virginia (Dudley 1646)

John Farrer Map, 1651

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John Smith's Map of Virginia, 1608 John Smith's "Virginia" was originally published separately in London in 1612 and then in the 1612 Oxford publication of John Smith's A Map of Virginia: With a Description of the Countrey, the Commodities, People, Government and Religion. Subsequently it appeared in several other works by Smith and other commentators on Virginia.

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America the Story of Us: Life in Jamestown | History

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On Epic, the book is called The Plymouth Colony: The Pilgrims Settle in Massachusetts by Kathleen Tracy.
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instant access to thousands of great kids books.

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Instantly access 40,000 high-quality books for kids

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The leading digital library for kids offering unlimited access to 40,000 of the best children's books of all time. Sign up for a free 30 day trial to instantly access high-quality online books for kids, ebooks, audio books, quizzes, videos, and more.

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Great information about the history of this settlement.

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Journey to the 'New World'

Among the group traveling on the Mayflower in 1620 were close to 40 members of a radical Puritan faction known as the English Separatist Church. Feeling that the Church of England had not sufficiently completed the necessary work of the Protestant Reformation, the group had chosen to break with the church altogether.

The Separatists had sought religious freedom before, fleeing England in 1607 and 1608 to settle in the Netherlands, first in Amsterdam and later in the town of Leiden, where they remained for the next decade. Wanting to secure their English language and heritage, and seeking more economic opportunity, the group-later known as the Pilgrims -laid plans for a voyage to the New World aboard the Mayflower.

Did you know? Three more ships traveled to Plymouth soon after the Mayflower, including the Fortune (1621), the Anne and the Little James (both 1623). Passengers on these first four ships were called the "Old Comers" of Plymouth Colony, and were given special treatment in later colonial affairs.

The Pilgrims had originally signed a contract with the Virginia Company to settle near the Hudson River, but rough seas and storms prevented the ship from reaching its initial destination. After 66 days, it reached the shores of Cape Cod, anchoring at the site of Provincetown on November 21. The Pilgrims sent an exploratory party ashore, and on December 18 docked at Plymouth Rock, on the western side of Cape Cod Bay. The explorer John Smith had named the area Plymouth after leaving Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the New World. The settlers decided the name was appropriate, as the Mayflower had set sail from the port of Plymouth in England.

Surviving the First Year in Plymouth Colony

For the next few months, many of the settlers stayed on the Mayflower while ferrying back and forth to shore to build their new settlement. In March, they began moving ashore permanently. More than half the settlers fell ill and died that first winter, victims of an epidemic of disease that swept the new colony.

Soon after they moved ashore, the Pilgrims were introduced to a Native American man named Tisquantum, or Squanto, who would become a member of the colony. A member of the Pawtuxet tribe (from present-day Massachusetts and Rhode Island) who had been kidnapped by the explorer John Smith and taken to England, only to escape back to his native land, Squanto acted as an interpreter and mediator between Plymouth's leaders and local Native Americans, including Chief Massasoit of the Pokanoket tribe.

The First Thanksgiving

In the Fall of 1621, the Pilgrims famously shared a harvest feast with the Pokanokets; the meal is now considered the basis for the Thanksgiving holiday. It took place over three days between late September and mid-November and included feasting as well as games and military exercises.

Most of the attendees at the first Thanksgiving were men; 78 percent of the women who traveled on the Mayflower perished over the preceding winter. Of the 50 colonists who celebrated the harvest (and their survival), 22 were men, four were married women and 25 were children and teenagers.

The Pilgrims were outnumbered more than two to one by Native Americans, according to Edward Winslow, a participant who attended with his wife and recorded what he saw in a letter, writing: "many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men."

Winslow records eating venison from five deer killed by the Native Americans along with chestnuts, cranberries, garlic and artichokes-all native wild plants the English were learning to use. Turkey was potentially served as well. By the late 1600s, Thanksgiving had become an annual fall tradition. It wasn't until 1863 that President Abraham Lincoln named the last Thursday in November a national holiday.

The Mayflower Compact

All the adult males aboard the Mayflower had signed the so-called Mayflower Compact, a document that would become the foundation of Plymouth's government. It was written after a near mutiny on board the Mayflower.

Forty-one of the Mayflower's 102 passengers were Pilgrims, separatists seeking religious freedom who referred to the rest of the travelers as "strangers." The strangers argued that since the Mayflower did not land in Virginia, as originally planned, the contract with the Virginia Company was void.

The Mayflower Compact set down laws for all Mayflower passengers to follow. It included a provision that colonists would create and enact "laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices..." for the good of the colony. Signees include John Carver, Plymouth Colony's first governor; Myles Standish, an English military officer and military leader of the colony; and preacher William Brewster. Though the Separatists were a minority in the group, they formed its powerful center, and would entirely control the colony's government during its first 40 years.

Governor William

William Bradford (1590-1657) was a leader of the Separatist congregation, a key framer of the Mayflower Compact, and Plymouth's governor for 30 years after its founding. He is credited with drafting major parts of Plymouth's legal code and creating a community focused on religious tolerance and an economy centered on private agriculture.

Born in England, he escaped with the Separatists to the Netherlands in 1609 when he was still a teenager to avoid persecution. Bradford kept a voluminous journal chronicling the Mayflower's voyage and the founding of Plymouth Colony that was published under the title Of Plymouth Plantation. It is considered one of the most important firsthand accounts of early New England.

Did you know? William Bradford's descendants include chef Julia Child, Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist and Noah Webster, creator of Webster's Dictionary.

Growth and Decline of the Plymouth Colony

With peace secured thanks to Squanto, the colonists in Plymouth were able to concentrate on building a viable settlement for themselves rather than spend their time and resources guarding themselves against attack. Squanto taught them how to plant corn, which became an important crop, as well as where to fish and hunt beaver.

Though Plymouth would never develop as robust an economy as later settlements-such as Massachusetts Bay Colony-agriculture, fishing and trading made the colony self-sufficient within five years after it was founded.

Many other European settlers followed in the Pilgrims' footsteps to New England. As the settlers sought to occupy more and more land in the region, relations with Native Americans deteriorated, and sporadic violence broke out that would culminate decades later in the bloody King Philip's War of 1675.

By that time, the ideal of Plymouth Colony-conceived in the Mayflower Compact as a self-contained community governed by a common religious affiliation-had given way to the far less lofty influences of trade and commerce. The devout Pilgrims, meanwhile, had fragmented into smaller, more self-serving groups. Still, the original concept served as the foundation for many later settlements. These included John Winthrop's Massachusetts Bay Colony, founded in 1630, which became the most populous and prosperous colony in the region. Plymouth's influence in New England declined accordingly, until it was absorbed by Massachusetts in 1691.

Plymouth Plantation

Today, the original colony of Plymouth is a living museum, a recreation of the original seventeenth-century village. Visitors can taste colonial food, see a restored Mayflower II and attend reenactments of the first Thanksgiving, when the Wampanaogs joined the settlers to celebrate the autumn harvest.

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Plymouth Colony - Location, Pilgrims & Thanksgiving | HISTORY

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Plymouth Colony was a British colony in Massachusetts settled by travelers arriving on the Mayflower in the 17th century. It was the first colonial settlement in New England and was the site of the first Thanksgiving.

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The first permanent English settlement.

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Jamestown: The First Permanent English Settlement

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This page also has the ability to be read aloud.

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Colonial America for Kids: Jamestown Settlement

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Kids learn about the Jamestown Settlement of colonial America including the first settlers, John Smith, the Powhatan tribe, the Staving Time, interesting facts, and Pocahontas.

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Jamestown Settlement | Jamestown Colony | Educational Story for Kids | Kids Academy

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A documentary about Plymouth Colony.

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This is a great website for all things historical!

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Jamestown Colony - Facts, Founding, Pocahontas

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The Jamestown Colony was the first permanent English settlement in North America. It was founded on the banks of Virginia’s James River in 1607.

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In PebbleGo Next search American Colonies.

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A comprehensive suite of e-learning resources designed for all ages and abilities with articles, videos, educator tools, eBooks, research guides and more.