Here’s wishing each of you a Happy Thanksgiving and safe travels!!!
What Was on the First Thanksgiving Menu?
Little is known about the first Thanksgiving dinner in the Plimoth Colony in October 1621, attended by some 50 English colonists and about 90 Wampanoag American Indian men in what is now
Massachusetts.
We do know that the Wampanoag killed five deer for the feast, and that the colonists shot wild fowl—which may have been geese, ducks, or turkey. Some form, or forms, of Indian corn were also served.
But Jennifer Monac, spokesperson for the living-history museum Plimoth Plantation, said the feasters likely supplemented their venison and birds with fish, lobster, clams, nuts, and wheat flour, as well as vegetables such as pumpkin, squash, carrots, and peas.
“They ate seasonally,” Monac said in 2009, “and this was the time of the year when they were really feasting. There were lots of vegetables around, because the harvest had been brought in.”
Much of what we consider traditional Thanksgiving fare was unknown at the first Thanksgiving. Potatoes and sweet potatoes hadn’t yet become staples of the English diet, for example. And cranberry sauce requires sugar—an expensive delicacy in the 1600s. Likewise, pumpkin pie went missing due to a lack of crust ingredients.
And the whole food coma thing? Well, that’s yet another myth…
It’s not the tryptophan in the turkey, it’s the booze, the amount of food (those second and third helpings of Granny’s sweet potato casserole and the pumpkin pie), and the sheer relaxation (other than the family fights/looney Uncle) and not having to work the next day…
A look back in time at a Navy Thanksgiving Menu… From soup to nuts!
And please, when you do sit down for your Thanksgiving, say a prayer for all our men and women serving in the military wherever they may be, and remember too our LEOs, Fire and EMS folks that are on the front lines here at home every day.
And I can’t resist! As God as my witness…
