Thanksgiving has become synonymous with roast turkey, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie, but the history of Thanksgiving (and Thanksgiving food) is far more complex (and often surprising). To truly understand how the holiday meal evolved, let's take a mini-trip into the past and examine the first gathering in 1621, explore the foods actually eaten, and trace how traditions have changed over the centuries.
What the Puritans and Wampanoag Actually Ate in 1621
The so-called "First Thanksgiving" was a three-day harvest feast shared between the English settlers (often referred to as Puritans for their uncompromising Separatist religious beliefs) and the Wampanoag people in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in early October 1621. There is only one primary source for any information about this event, and that is a letter written by Separatist Colonist Edward Winslow. Contrary to modern images, there is little evidence that cranberry sauce or pumpkin pie graced the table. Instead, the meal reflected what was available:
- Meat: Venison, supplied by the Wampanoag, featured heavily. Wild fowl, possibly wild turkeys, were also served, although Winslow’s letter only specifies fowl, not a specific type.
- Seafood: Clams, mussels, lobsters, and fish were abundant and likely included.
- Vegetables & Grains: Corn in the form of porridges or breads, beans, squash, and green vegetables were staples.
- Fruits & Nuts: Dried berries, nuts, and wild fruits may have been part of the feast.
The celebration feast bore little resemblance to the foods we associate with Thanksgiving today and would not have been called a Thanksgiving, as the colonists usually celebrated a day of Thanksgiving with a fast, not a feast. Despite anchoring the modern myth of Thanksgiving, the event was so unremarkable to most of the colonists that it was never mentioned again in their many records.
The Evolution of Thanksgiving Food
Over time, Protestant New Englanders continued to hold harvest celebrations, but Thanksgiving was not a national holiday. Many Southerners viewed Thanksgiving as a Yankee holiday, and the Catholic Church opposed it as a Protestant celebration until the 1880s. Even in the Northeast, poorer Americans usually could not afford a turkey, although some were given one by their employers.
Even within New England and other areas influenced by English immigrants and their traditions, meals varied regionally. A typical feast featured whatever was plentiful: beef, pork, fowl, and meat and fruit pies (as a New Zealander who is not fond of fruit pies, I am convinced that America made a grave wrong turn when cooks abandoned the meat pie). Pumpkin may have been eaten at the first Thanksgiving, but it was definitely not eaten in a pie, as the colonists did not have the ingredients (wheat flour and butter) to make a pie crust or an oven in which to bake a pie. References to sweetened cranberry sauce first appear in the 1670s, suggesting cranberries were not served at the first Thanksgiving. However, they soon became popular as Indigenous peoples recognized the colonists’ preference for them and sold them to townspeople.
Thanksgiving was not solely focused on home and family at this time, but was often a time when men would gather, drink, and go from house to house, begging for (or demanding) treats. Other groups of men, called the Fantasticals, dressed as women and paraded through the streets. Children would also dress in rags or costumes and ask for coins or treats, serving as a precursor to the modern Halloween tradition. Thanksgiving was not a quiet, indoor, family-oriented celebration, but something closer to a raucous carnival. Tolerated and enjoyed by most Americans for many years, the death knell for public displays of carousing on Thanksgiving came in the early 20th Century when preachers, newspapers, and authority figures began to frown on them, and police began arresting carousers for public drunkenness.
Many of the Thanksgiving foods we think of as staples (turkey, cranberries, stuffing, and fruit pies) became more common in the 19th century for those who could afford them. Middle and upper-class Americans began to embrace Thanksgiving, particularly after 1863, when Abraham Lincoln declared it a National Holiday. By the second half of the 19th Century, Thanksgiving celebrations were less likely to occur outside as a communal event, and more likely to be held at home as a "domestic event."
Sarah Josepha Hale, the influential editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, a women’s magazine, played a significant role in standardizing the Thanksgiving meal through her articles and recipes. She remembered Thanksgiving celebrations from her New Hampshire childhood and promoted them as the ideal Thanksgiving. At a time when more Americans learned to read and write, and publishers were producing numerous publications to capitalize on the public’s desire for new reading material, magazines had a profound influence. Hale tirelessly campaigned for Thanksgiving to become a national holiday (in part to bring together two sections of the country increasingly divided over slavery), and when Abraham Lincoln proclaimed it so in 1863, her vision of Thanksgiving became the ideal.
Although Hale promoted turkey as the centerpiece of Thanksgiving, it took time for this tradition to take hold. In the 19th century, women managed poultry near the home, often with help from children, and selectively bred domestic and wild North American turkeys to create hardier birds. Raising poultry provided families with food and women with extra income. In the early 20th century, disease and habitat loss reduced turkey numbers, and men took over large-scale turkey farming in the West. Industrial feedlots soon produced affordable, uniform turkeys for grocery chains like A&P, making it cheaper for many Americans to buy a turkey for Thanksgiving.
With industrialization, television, and the rise of food advertising, Thanksgiving meals became even more standardized. Canned cranberry sauce, boxed stuffing mixes, and frozen turkeys helped make preparation easier. Regional variations persisted, such as mac and cheese in the South, wild rice in the Midwest, and tamales in some Southwestern households, but the core meal of roast turkey with trimmings became nearly universal. At the Eisenhower White House, the president and his staff demonstrated to Americans the mainstays of a typical Thanksgiving feast.
Today, Thanksgiving food continues to evolve. Some families honor tradition, while others experiment with new flavors (last year, my family and I cooked a lamb roast with roasted crispy sweet potatoes, a citrus green salad, and pavlova for dessert). Yet the idea of gathering around a hearty meal remains central.
Hailing from New Zealand, Ngaire Smith currently lives in the mountains of North Carolina. She has worked in academic libraries both in the USA and New Zealand for many years and believes strongly in the power of librarians to help students succeed in their studies.