Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Wednesday, November 22. 2023

What was on the menu at the first Thanksgiving?


Thanks to Squanto, the Pilgrims had a decent harvest of corn and squash (pumpkins mostly, I think) in the autumn of 1621. Also, thanks to Squanto, the friendly neighboring Wampanoags visited bearing venision. Indians likely outnumbered the English at this feast day.


It seems Turkey, roasted pumpkin, mussels, eels, cod, roasted or stewed venison, corn meal mush, and maybe lobster were on the menu:  First Thanksgiving Meal.


There seem not to have been a lot of oysters nearby (maybe the Indians ate them all), but plenty of Cod. Ever heard of Cape Cod Turkey?


They had to learn to fish and how to plant. They had no milk (no livestock on Mayflower unless you count the 2 dogs), and any sugar or flour on board had been exhausted during the voyage. The Mayflower crew (30 men) returned home on starvation rations in Spring, 1621. Mayflower was an 80-foot leaky old cargo vessel which was barely suited for anything.



Posted by Bird Dog in Food and Drink at 12:24 | Comments (8) | Trackbacks (0)

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The first Thanksgiving held by English settlers occurred in Jamestown, VA in 1610. That's eleven years before the Pilgrims thought about it. People seem to forget that Jamestown was fourteen years old when the New Englanders decided to thank God with a celebration of harvest.
#1 BLee on 2022-11-20 15:18 (Reply)
But 4/5ths of the Jamestown colonists died in the first 6 months. Many of them at the hands of the noble savages who lived there. It seems that it wasn't just white people who were racists. So the Jamestown colonists decided that maybe a "Thanks giving" was not appropriate. Especially since they had no turkeys and resorted to eating human flesh.
#1.1 OneGuy on 2022-11-20 15:35 (Reply)
Now that the politicized DOJ has appointed a special prosecutor to politically crucify Trump, I think we will soon see who on the "right" and which Republicans are traitors. They can't help themselves; they are like high school football players jumping onto the pile of tacklers. Pay attention so you will know who does NOT want to make America great again.

Remind me again how many of those Republican representatives who voted to impeach Trump on phony charges are still around. Soon it will be time to clean house again.
#2 Anon on 2022-11-20 15:44 (Reply)
The pilgrim comrades tried communalism and it didn't work.

The colony’s governor, William Bradford, wrote that its socialist philosophy greatly hindered its growth: Young men resented working for the benefit of other men’s wives and children without compensation; healthy men who worked thought it unjust that they received no more food than weak men who could not; wives resented doing household chores for other men, considering it a kind of slavery.

Governor Bradford wrote that to avoid famine in 1623, the Pilgrims abandoned socialism.

Dr. Judd W. Patton, professor of economics at Bellevue University-Nebraska.
#3 Trucker Carlsen on 2022-11-20 18:45 (Reply)
There would not have been a lot of difference between a pumpkin and a winter squash at the time of the Pilgrims, the large, orange, hollow Jack o' Lantern cultivars being a fairly recent development.

In canning, the USDA allows Winter squash and pumpkin to be substituted or blended in the process and still labeled as "Pumpkin".
#4 Another Guy named Dan on 2023-11-22 14:25 (Reply)
Ages ago the Boston Globe carried a Thanksgiving turkey receipt handed down through five generations of Mayflower descendants that they claimed was learned from the Indians. The key ingredient was a stuffing made of oysters. It would be fun to track it down and try it out.
#5 Paul in Boston on 2023-11-22 15:15 (Reply)
My now deceased mother in law only made oyster dressing. If
you like slimy stuffing this is for you. Tried it when we were first dating and about gagged trying to swallow it. Never again.
#5.1 JC on 2023-11-23 07:58 (Reply)
A very Happy Thanksgiving to all my American friends!
#6 JJM on 2023-11-23 18:58 (Reply)

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