Here's what was served at the real first Thanksgiving (2024)

FAQs

Here's what was served at the real first Thanksgiving? ›

There are only two surviving documents that reference the original Thanksgiving harvest meal. They describe a feast of freshly killed deer, assorted wildfowl, a bounty of cod and bass, and flint, a native variety of corn harvested by the Native Americans, which was eaten as corn bread and porridge.

So while our Thanksgiving dinner table has a big ol' turkey plated in the center, the first Thanksgiving table was likely filled with ducks, geese, eels, lobster, and venison. Maybe there was a turkey, but it was either missing or too dry for anyone to literally write home about it.

Massasoit sent some of his own men to hunt deer for the feast and for three days, the English and native men, women, and children ate together. The meal consisted of deer, corn, shellfish, and roasted meat, different from today's traditional Thanksgiving feast. They played ball games, sang, and danced.

The first Thanksgiving banquet consisted of foods like venison, bean stew and hard biscuits. And while corn and pumpkin had their place on the table, they hardly resembled the cornbread stuffing and pumpkin pie we feast on today.

While turkey is the staple for Thanksgiving today, it may not have been on the menu during what is considered the First Thanksgiving. The First Thanksgiving meal eaten by pilgrims in November 1621 included lobster. They also ate fruits and vegetables brought by Native Americans, mussels, bass, clams, and oysters.

There are only two surviving documents that reference the original Thanksgiving harvest meal. They describe a feast of freshly killed deer, assorted wildfowl, a bounty of cod and bass, and flint, a native variety of corn harvested by the Native Americans, which was eaten as corn bread and porridge.

A Harvest Celebration

During the autumn of 1621, at least 90 Wampanoag joined 52 English people at what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts, to mark a successful harvest. It is remembered today as the “First Thanksgiving,” although no one back then used that term.

Our modern definition of Thanksgiving revolves around eating turkey, but this was more of an occasion for religious observance in past centuries. The Pilgrims would most likely consider their sober 1623 day of prayer the first actual Thanksgiving, according to the History of Massachusetts Blog.

The Pilgrims were able to establish a peace treaty with Massasoit and the Wampanoag went on to teach them how to hunt, plant crops and how to get the best of their harvest, saving the Pilgrims from starvation. This is was not thought to be an easy alliance though.

Potatoes. Whether mashed or roasted, white or sweet, potatoes had no place at the first Thanksgiving. After encountering it in its native South America, the Spanish began introducing the potato to Europeans around 1570.

Did they have corn at the first Thanksgiving? ›

Therefore, corn undoubtedly was served at the first Thanksgiving, but not in the form we know it. Most likely the corn, being mature and dry, would have been removed from the cob and ground into cornmeal. The cornmeal then was boiled and pounded into a think mush that often was sweetened with molasses.

Pumpkin pie, on the other hand, would not have been on the menu since the Pilgrims didn't have access to butter or wheat flour to make pie crusts or other pastries. The Pilgrims also learned farming practices from the Wampanoag, allowing them to grow native crops.

During the Mayflower's voyage, the Pilgrims' main diet would have consisted primarily of a cracker-like biscuit ("hard tack"), salt pork, dried meats including cow tongue, various pickled foods, oatmeal and other cereal grains, and fish. The primary beverage for everyone, including children, was beer.

So, to the question “What did the Pilgrims eat for Thanksgiving,” the answer is both surprising and expected. Turkey (probably), venison, seafood, and all of the vegetables that they had planted and harvested that year—onions, carrots, beans, spinach, lettuce, and other greens.

And while cranberries are a key crop in Massachusetts even today and the Pilgrims were surrounded by them, the recipe for cranberry sauce is more than 50 years in the future, as the Pilgrims lacked a key ingredient here too—sugar was incredibly scarce. So they ate dried or raw cranberries.

William Bradford, the governor of Plymouth Plantation, wrote in Of Plimouth Plantation that many people “were excersised in fishing, aboute codd, and bass, and other fish, of which they tooke good store, of which every family had their portion.

Erica Boynton, Remick museum program manager, says a typical New England Thanksgiving meal of the period included a rich assortment of simple, seasonal foods, with ample vegetables, wild game, fish and other meats — and, of course, several pies.

Ironically, many Native American dishes have quietly been absorbed into what we see today as 'American' cuisine, many of which you'll likely enjoy this Thanksgiving: cranberry sauce, succotash, pumpkin and squash soups, corn and corn bread (and popcorn!), even mashed potatoes.

Answer and Explanation:

The Pilgrims at the first Thanksgiving in 1621 used spoons and knives, but did not have forks. Although we commonly have pumpkin pie and mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving, the Pilgrims would not have had those foods.

Welcome to Berkeley Plantation

Our history begins in 1619 when settlers observed the first official Thanksgiving in America. Berkeley's 1726 Georgian mansion is the birthplace of Benjamin Harrison V, signer of the Declaration of Independence and three times governor of Virginia.