First Thanksgiving A 3-Day Bash

When we push back our chairs from the Thanksgiving table on Thursday we mentally will congratulate the Pilgrims for inventing such a sumptuous feast - even though the menu then was considerably different.

Harvest celebrations, however, have been customary since ancient times.  The first in America was observed Dec. 4, 1619, by settlers at Berkley Hundred, Va.  They decreed that "the day of our ship's arrival shall he yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of thanksgiving to almighty God."

This earlier holiday did not feature a feast.  To the Pilgrims, therefore, goes the credit for roast turkey.

The whole ritual of today's Thanksgiving derives from two paragraphs of a letter by Pilgrim Edward Winslow to a friend in England.  He wrote that the first harvest of 1621 was a mixed success.  The corn had "proved well," the barley "indifferent good," but the peas had failed and were "not worth the gathering."

Nevertheless, the Pilgrims had cause to be thankful.  The colony had survived a terrible first year during which nearly half the 103 settlers had perished.  Massasoit, sagamore (chief) of the Wampanoag, had pledged peace.

In addition, an Indian named Squanto had moved in to teach them wilderness skills.  Squanto spoke English, a great service in assisting good relations with the several native tribes nearby.  He had been shanghaied by white fishermen, sold as a slave in Spain, escaped to England and worked his way back to the New World on a British fishing boat.

Chief Massasoit had entertained two peace emissaries cordially during a visit to his village that spring.  It was deemed appropriate to return the hospitality after the harvest when there was sufficient food, and the colony appeared strong.  Squanto was dispatched with an invitation.

"Our harvest being gotten in," wrote Winslow, "our Governor (William Bradford) sent four men on fowling so that we might in a more special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors.

"They four in one day killed as much fowl, as with little help beside, served the Company almost a week, at which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms (guns).

"Many of the Indians came amongst us, and among the rest their greatest King Massasoit, with some 90 men whom for three days we entertained and feasted."

The Pilgrims had assumed Massasoit would attend the party with a small, personal retinue.  A full company of hungry savages must have been a shock to the five matrons of the colony who had to cook for so many unexpected guests.

The only recorded food served was venison, turkey and cornbread.  Yet, we can be certain that 145 people in a three-day bash would eat everything that could be scraped together. From contemporary accounts we can reconstruct the probable "fixings."

Roasted turkeys were stuffed with a dressing of cornbread and sage.  Venison was presented as a stew and as roast haunch.  There was Canada goose and canvasback duck.

From the bay came cod, bass, lobsters, eels, clams (called slams) and oysters (called muskles).  The fish would have been wrapped in clay, Indian style, and baked in hot embers.  Shellfish would have been baked in their shells and the clams chopped into a chowder known as nasaump.

Few vegetables would have been served.  Englishmen had little taste for them, and the wild green "sallets" of spring had long since gone to seed.  Leeks probably were the only fresh food available.

There would have been biscuits and bread made from the dwindling supply of wheat flour brought over on the Mayflower.  Maize was pounded into flour with stones and baked into "hoe cakes." These may have been spread sparingly with salted butter also brought from England in casks a year before.

Dried fruits provided variety to the menu.  Among these were raisins, prunes, strawberries, gooseberries, cherries, huckleberries and a groundnut known as bogbean.  The ladies may have baked some of these in dough cases - forerunner of the now famous American pie.

For desert there was Indian pudding consisting of corn meal and molasses boiled in a bag.

To wash it all down there was weak barley beer – undoubtedly spiked with the last of the brandy brought from England - and new wine made from native concord grapes.

The Indians introduced the colonists to a new delicacy -popcorn balls made with maple syrup.

Several New England favorites of later years were missing from this first Thanksgiving feast.

There was no cider or apple pie, for orchards had not yet been planted.  There was no beef, cheese, cream or milk because cows had not yet been imported.  Cranberry sauce was as yet unknown because there was no sugar available to tame the bitter berry.  Pumpkin pie was not on the menu for the Pilgrims had not yet acquired a taste for that Indian staple nor learned how to grow it.

In between bouts with the trenchers (wooden platters), the men and boys engaged in foot races, jumping, wrestling, marksmanship with bow and gun, and stool ball.  The latter was a favorite sport most like violent croquet.

Captain Miles Standish drilled the Pilgrim Guard with marches, wheels and dashes - concluding with a mass firing of weapons and cannon.  In the evening, the Indians performed their corn-harvest dance.

Massasoit's braves were so delighted with the festivities they stayed until the food ran out.  Though the Pilgrims' precious store of food was dangerously depleted, they did not begrudge the holiday.

Bradford summed it all up 30 years later in his history of the Plymouth colony:

"They were ready to perish in this wilderness, but they cried unto the Lord, and he heard their voice, and looked on their adversity.  Let them therefore praise the Lord, because He is good and His mercies endure forever!"

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