Back in 1621, when the Pilgrims at Plymouth settlement sat down with the Wampanoag Indians to share the first autumn harvest feast, they had no way of knowing their meal would become the first Thanksgiving dinner, or that the tradition would continue, off and on, for at least another 386 years ~ right up to today.

While we celebrate that tradition on the fourth Thursday in November, the first Thanksgiving feast actually went on for three days and guests included the famous Indian king, Massasoit, who is largely credited with saving the colonists from starvation during those first grueling years of the settlement.

Although historians don’t necessarily agree as to what the first Thanksgiving meal consisted of, they do all seem to believe that a lot of our modern day staples weren’t in evidence back then, including pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes or cranberry sauce.

According to historians, there were probably no sweet potatoes, or potatoes of any kind, on the table, as many Europeans still considered potatoes (and tomatoes) to be poisonous. And while there may have been some type of corn-based fried bread, there was probably no corn on the cob, as corn was usually being dried out during the fall season. The Pilgrims didn’t bring any cows over on the Mayflower, so there was probably no cheese or butter ~ unless they whipped some up from goat’s milk. They had pigs, but historians claim none were butchered at that time. They had cranberries but no sugar, so cranberry sauce hadn’t even been conceived of. Nor had pumpkin pie been created yet. There were recipes for stewed pumpkins, but not pie. There may have been eggs and chicken, if any were left from the trip from England, but that’s just a guess.

So while no one knows with certainty what those first celebrants actually dined on, we do know deer meat and wild fowl were definitely on the menu. Wild fowl, of course, was in abundance ~  cranes, geese, swans, duck, partridge, eagles and our own perennial favorite, turkey. Other possible food items could well have included seafood, as they were so near the coast. They could have eaten lobster, cod, clams, eel or possibly even seal meat.

Vegetables could have included pumpkin, onions, beans, peas, carrots, or maybe a rudimentary salad of lettuce, watercress and radishes, possibly with a little olive oil dressing. They could have had fruit, such as grapes, plums or berries. Or nuts, such as chestnuts, walnuts or acorns. They also could have whipped something up from grains of the day, such as Indian corn and wheat flour. Whatever they had could have been seasoned with parsnips, leeks, dried currants, liverwort or salt. Their diet would have included a lot of dried foods, as there was no refrigeration and food items were easily spoiled.

The Pilgrims, who were originally members of the English Separatist Church, left England to pursue their faith. Before sailing to America, they first tried settling in The Netherlands; but after a time, the conservative Separatists began to view Dutch society as ungodly (I can’t help but wonder how different the world would be today had they chosen to stay in The Netherlands). Interestingly, of all the ones who traveled to the new world aboard the Mayflower, only about a third were Separatist. The rest were crew members or men hired on as protection. Of the 102 Pilgrims who settled Plymouth, 46 died within the first year due to illness and hardship ~ nearly half their number.

One of the most detailed first-hand accounts of the first Thanksgiving can be found in Edward Winslow’s “A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth,” written between 1620 and 1621. I encourage everyone, especially our young people, to learn all they can about the history of our great country and where we come from as a people and a nation. Only by understanding what came before can we reasonably plot a path into the future.