Tracing our treasured Thanksgiving traditionsDate: 11/20/2018 SPRINGFIELD – We think of it as a purely American tradition, a story well known by every elementary school student. How the Pilgrims and the Indians came together to celebrate the harvest at Plymouth, and basically invented Thanksgiving.
But that’s not entirely true.
You see that three-day party – proclaimed by the colony’s governor William Bradford and attended, it is recorded, by the 50 surviving pilgrims and approximately 90 Wampanoag Indians following the colony’s successful second year of farming – was modeled on celebrations the Pilgrims had enjoyed many times at home.
We ‘borrowed’ thanksgiving
“The concept of a thanksgiving was already familiar to the colonists,” food historian and cookbook author Claire Hopley told attendees at her “Why Pie” lecture at the Springfield Museums on Nov. 3. “In England these celebrations were often called Harvest Home, and were village based festivals. The Native Americans had their harvest festivals, too.”
In fact, “thanksgiving” festivals were a common occurrence in England, Hopley noted, having been regularly proclaimed by the government to commemorate such things as the defeat of the Spanish Armada and the birth of royal offspring. These days typically included games, feasting and food and drink provided for the poor. There was also usually a period of penance observed before all the celebrating began.
They already loved turkey
The colonists were even familiar with the “great store of wild turkeys.” Bradford recorded the four men he sent out hunting prior to the feast bagged and delivered for cooking. Though we think of turkeys as purely American birds – they are native only to North and South America – Hopley said Europe had been acquainted with the tasty fowl for nearly a century before they graced the first American feast day.
She said the Spaniards, who had explored Central America early in the 16th Century, brought turkeys back with them to Europe. The birds were quickly adopted for feast celebrations – Hopley noted that roasted fowl was a mainstay of feasts and other celebrations – and these new birds “tasted better than swans [and herons]” and some of the other wildfowl customarily prepared for such occasions.
Thus, “By the time the colonists got here in 1620, they already know about turkeys,” she said.
Cranberries, well ...
The lowly cranberry, well, that was something the Pilgrims encountered for the first time here in America.
“It was not common in Europe, but it was common to mix fruit and fowl,” Hopley said. And though the cranberry was a questionable addition to their diets, colonists had quickly adapted to eating the orange berries found on Mountain Ash trees. “They were called rowans, and they made a sauce of them,” she said.
About those pies
As for our penchant for pies at Thanksgiving, well, we clearly share that with the colonists, only to them pie was something to be eaten at any point during a feast, not just for dessert. Pies were part of most celebrations in Europe at the time, as well as often part of daily fare. “They would have eaten them whenever,” Hopley said. “Meat pies were tremendously popular, but fruit pies were beginning to be known.”
She added that for many of the early Thanksgiving celebrations in America, chicken potpie, and mincemeat pie – which was actually an English Christmas tradition – were popular dishes, served right along with the turkey.
However pumpkin pie – a hallmark of our modern Thanksgiving feasts – was not an early favorite. It was first mentioned in accounts of the colonists’ thanksgiving celebration of 1626, and a 1654 account from a visitor to the Colonies, after noting how much good food was available, extolled the fact that apple and pear pies, and quince tarts were available, and much preferred to the earlier pumpkin pies. Hopley said for most of the Colonial era, serving pumpkin pie at a feast was considered a poor choice.
And, though pies that used pumpkin and other varieties of winter squash – including the crookneck – were a diet staple in early New England, it wasn’t until the 1796 publication of Amelia Simmons “American Cookery ” – the first cookbook published in America – that a recipe for a “pumpkin pudding” with nutmeg, an early forerunner of our pumpkin pie, appears in print.
And the football ...
Even our love of games and tests of strength – in the modern case, our obsession with Thanksgiving football games – were familiar traditions to those at Plymouth Plantation. History tells us about the games the Wampanoag played during the feasting, and Gov. Bradford’s account of the first Thanksgiving noting, “Amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms.” Even these seemingly spontaneous festivities were a carryover from fests and festivals the colonists were accustomed to at home.
In fact, the playing of games, and many of the foods we now associate with Thanksgiving, actually trace their roots back to the English Christmas traditions of the time. Hopley said the Puritans were morally against Christmas celebrations because of what they considered their extravagance – but were also unwilling to completely give up many of their favorite foods and traditions – so they simply transferred them to their annual thanksgiving celebrations.
So our American tradition actually has thoroughly English roots. Be thankful for the thrifty Pilgrims, and their penchant for traditions!
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