What did pilgrims actually eat on Thanksgiving?
Fowl. Items such as waterfowl, wildfowl (yes, there were turkeys, but they were wild, not domestic), venison, chestnuts, shellfish, possibly porridge made from corn (sometimes sweetened with molasses, if available), and wild fruits graced that first table, where pilgrims and Wampanoag broke proverbial bread.
What They (Likely) Did Have at the First Thanksgiving. So venison was a major ingredient, as well as fowl, but that likely included geese and ducks. Turkeys are a possibility, but were not a common food in that time. Pilgrims grew onions and herbs.
It turns out that the desserts on the big day were more likely sweetened by something else entirely: Dried grapes and raisins! According to If You Were at the First Thanksgiving, Anne Kamma's history book for kids: Perhaps you would have eaten cornmeal pudding sweetened with dried strawberries or grapes.
Fruits and Vegetables
The 1621 Thanksgiving celebration marked the Pilgrims' first autumn harvest, so it is likely that the colonists feasted on the bounty they had reaped with the help of their Native American neighbors.
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.
In the middle of the day, everyone ate dinner, which was a largest meal of the day made up of several foods. There was probably a thick porridge or bread made from Indian corn and some kind of meat, fowl or fish. Supper was a smaller meal, often just leftovers from dinner.
It's not likely that the Pilgrims and the Indians consumed any bread dressing, mashed potatoes or pumpkin pie. In fact, it is not likely that they ate any roast turkey either.
Venison was there,” says Kathleen Wall. “These are absolutes.” Two primary sources—the only surviving documents that reference the meal—confirm that these staples were part of the harvest celebration shared by the Pilgrims and Wampanoag at Plymouth Colony in 1621.
Potatoes—white or sweet—would not have been featured on the 1621 table, and neither would sweet corn. Bread-based stuffing was also not made, though the Pilgrims may have used herbs or nuts to stuff birds.
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.
What did the Pilgrims drink at the first Thanksgiving?
“What the pilgrims drank was fermented apple juice, or what we call hard cider. And that's because it was something they were used to drinking back in England. Cider was very, very popular in Europe and they were lucky – several varieties of apples are native to America,” said Pearce.
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. Back in 1621, lobsters were so plentiful that you could grab them by the hand straight out of the ocean at low tide.
Cooking and Food
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.
Corn was on the table at the first Thanksgiving dinner and continues to be a staple of the holiday today. Edward Winslow, one of the founders of Plymouth Colony, wrote that the spring before Thanksgiving, the settlers planted 20 acres of Indian corn (also known as flint corn).
The pilgrims did not use forks.
Instead the pilgrims ate with spoons, knives, and their fingers.
All the things the first Pilgrims and the native Wampanoag ate back in the year 1621, right? Of course, we know that isn't exactly accurate. For one thing, macaroni and cheese is definitely not a traditional Thanksgiving food, nor did the Pilgrims and Wampanoag have oven-safe dishes for baking green-bean casseroles.
Animals and Livestock of Early Plymouth
In fact, the only animals known with certainty to have come on the Mayflower were two dogs, an English mastiff and an English spaniel, who are mentioned on a couple of occasions in the Pilgrims' journals.
They most likely had dried meat and fish, cheese, dried fruit, biscuits, grains, flour, and dried beans and peas. When their water supply became unfit to drink, the Pilgrims drank beer. In fact, in the seventeenth century, many people always chose beer over water, as the latter was often contaminated.
Cheesemaking continued to flourish in Europe and became an established food. In fact, the Pilgrims included cheese in the Mayflower's supplies when they made their voyage to America in 1620.
AD 1621: Wampanoag people save Pilgrims
The Wampanoag people, the “People of the First Light,” are responsible for saving the Pilgrims from starvation and death during the harsh winter of 1620–21.
What did the Pilgrims eat for breakfast?
Those in costume served a 17th-century meal consisting of cod cakes, baked beans, spider cake and scrambled eggs. But the food was only part of the fun.
There's also the fact that settlers came to the land to kidnap and sell Native Americans into slavery. The newly settled Europeans also did not invite the Native Americans to their feast.
As was the custom in England, the Pilgrims celebrated their harvest with a festival. The 50 remaining colonists and roughly 90 Wampanoag tribesmen attended the "First Thanksgiving."
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 natives dried fish and smoked shellfish, as well as ate other fish, shrimp, oysters, and crabs. So, it's very likely that the natives present at the first Thanksgiving provided seafood for the pilgrims to eat.