The History of Thanksgiving

The roots of Thanksgiving are some when in 1621, when the Plymouth colonists and native Indians shared a big harvest celebration. This first harvest meal has become a symbol of cooperation between the colonists and the native Indians. Although people thought that this was the very first Thanks giving ever, historians found out that the native Indians had a big harvest feast, ceremonial dances all the years before, in 1621 it was only the first one that the colonists and the Indians had together, the first one ever that they shared. The food they had this time of course was not pumkin pie or mashed potatoes, instead it was fowls, deeres, lobster, seal and swans. The colonists didn’t use forks, they used spoons, knifes and their fingers. They mostly were eaten in two courses, it was mostly meat and later sweets like puddings. Vegetable was not always available during these days. Because the pilgrims and Indians had no refrigeration, they dried lots of their food, such as meet, fish but also corn and herbs. They had their most important and biggest meal of the day at noontime. The woman this time spent almost the whole mornings cooking. Dinner this time was a much smaller meal at the end of the day and breakfast was mostly the previous day’s leftovers.

Source: Kathleen Curtin, Food Historian at Plimoth Plantation