The American Roots of a Thanksgiving Meal
Which classic Thanksgiving dishes can trace their origins to the Americas?
What’s in a Traditional Thanksgiving Dinner?
Thanksgiving is a beloved tradition of the United States—a time for families to come together, enjoy a good meal, and express their gratitude in life. According to popular lore, the holiday began as a meal of friendship between Plymouth settlers and resident Wampanoag people in 1621. (An alternate version of the story places the first feast at Virginia in 1619.) But the first Thanksgiving meal probably didn’t look much like the ones cooked up today. Accounts from the time state the Pilgrims and Wampanoag feasted on seafood, venison, berries, and waterfowl with their turkey.
Today’s Thanksgiving dinner has changed alongside American tastes, but it still consists of many ingredients indigenous to the Americas. Read on to learn more about the origins of these Thanksgiving favorites.
Turkey
The turkey is a large ground-dwelling bird of North and Central America and the centerpiece of most Thanksgiving tables. There are two major types of turkey: the ocellated turkey of Central America and the common wild turkey of North America. The wild turkey is a smart, social, and agile bird that prefers to forage in deciduous forests. Governor William Bradford describes “a great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many.” Years after the bald eagle was chosen as a national symbol of the United States, Benjamin Franklin wrote a letter lamenting that decision. The turkey, he declared, was a “much more respectable bird.”
Prior to European colonization, indigenous civilizations like the Aztec Empire had already at least partially domesticated turkeys. The domestic turkeys we raise and eat today are the descendants of a wild turkey subspecies from Mexico. These tasty, tamer birds were exported by the Spanish by the 1600s. Their English name may have occurred due to confusion with a similar bird, the African guinea fowl, imported through modern Istanbul, Turkey.
Mashed Potatoes
Potatoes weren’t on the menu at the first Thanksgiving, but they’re still a crop native to the Americas. The Peruvian plant was first viewed with suspicion by European outsiders thanks to its poisonous leaves. It entered European gardens not as a food crop, but as an ornamental flower. Many years later, around the early 1700s, the potato was increasingly accepted as an easy-to-grow and nutritious food source. Some nations grew so reliant on the crop that a wave of blight could spark national famines. While the diners at the first Thanksgiving had no access to the plant, mashed potatoes quickly became a Thanksgiving staple.
Pumpkin Pie
Pumpkins and other squashes likely did make an appearance at Plymouth in 1621, though not as a pie. Sugar and flour would have been too precious for widespread baking. Instead, pumpkins and various gourds may have been boiled and eaten whole or as part of a stew.
Squashes are one of the oldest known domestic crops in the Americas. Their wild ancestors fed and were spread by the massive megafauna that once roamed the continents. The gradual extinction of the megafauna put squashes at risk as well until humans intervened. Gourds may have served as useful tools, and new generations of plants grew softer, tastier, and more edible based on human preference. As you enjoy that slice of pumpkin pie, remember that it exists thanks to thousands of years of careful cultivation.
Cranberry Sauce
Cranberries are a family of plants native to both northern North America and Eurasia. They grow in acidic, boggy environments, including the forested regions of New England. There’s a good chance that Wampanoag people did bring cranberries, among other berries, to the feast of 1621. But cranberry sauce, much like pumpkin pie, simply wouldn’t be possible thanks to the lack of sugar. Any cranberry-flavored dishes were probably quite tart!
Green Beans
Green bean casserole is another time-honored Thanksgiving tradition with its roots in Peru. While many beans were cultivated in the Americas, green beans were especially popular because they can be eaten in their soft shells. The crop spread into Central America and was sometimes grown with corn and squash as part of the “Three Sisters” farming method.
Other bean varieties may have been served at Thanksgiving, but the green bean casserole entered the scene much later. The recipe appears to have been invented in the 1950s to promote Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup.
Corn
Perhaps no American crop besides potatoes can compete with the global success of corn, or maize. This highly adapted grass plant sends up tall stalks each year yielding sweet and succulent kernels. Corn was the staple crop for cultures across Central and North America, including what is now New England. The Plymouth colonists planted corn with the help of their Native American neighbors, and they threw a feast to celebrate its harvest. As a result, corn bread and porridge would be served up in abundance. The “flint corn” they grew was multi-colored and with smaller kernels, unlike the sweet corn more commonly seen today.
Today, the corn harvest is still an important event for many of the Americas’ indigenous cultures. Spiritual and social events like corn dances are held across the United States each year. While the turkey and mashed potatoes may steal the show, it’s really corn that we have to thank for the modern holiday of Thanksgiving.
Of course, these are just a few of the dishes families serve up each Thanksgiving. What does your family do differently? Do you have any favorite traditional recipes, and if so, what’s their story? We invite you to share your own heritage and recommendations here on TOTA.
References
Fessenden, Marissa. “Domestication Saved the Pumpkin (and Squash).” Smithsonian Magazine, 18 Nov. 2015, www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/domestication-saved-pumpkin-and-squash-180957314.
McKenzie, Robert Tracy. The First Thanksgiving: What the Real Story Tells Us About Loving God and Learning from History. IVP Academic, 2013.
Oliver, Sandra. Food in Colonial and Federal America (Food in American History). Greenwood, 2005.
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