Here are some interesting facts and myths about our nation's historic celebration, along with a quiz at the end.
MYTH: The first Thanksgiving was in 1621 and the pilgrims celebrated it every year thereafter.
FACT: The first feast wasn't repeated, so it wasn't the beginning of a tradition. In fact, the colonists didn't even call the day Thanksgiving. To them, a thanksgiving was a religious holiday in which they would go to church and thank God for a specific event, such as the winning of a battle. On such a religious day, the types of recreational activities that the pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians participated in during the 1621 harvest feast--dancing, singing secular songs, playing games--wouldn't have been allowed. The feast was a secular celebration, so it never would have been considered a thanksgiving in the pilgrims minds.
MYTH: The original Thanksgiving feast took place on the fourth Thursday of November.
FACT: The original feast in 1621 occurred sometime between September 21 and November 11. Unlike our modern holiday, it was three days long. The event was based on English harvest festivals, which traditionally occurred around the 29th of September. President Franklin D. Roosevelt set the date for Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday of November in 1939 (approved by Congress in 1941). Abraham Lincoln had previously designated it as the last Thursday in November, which may have correlated it with the November 21, 1621, anchoring of the Mayflower at Cape Cod.
MYTH: The pilgrims wore only black and white clothing. They had buckles on their hats, garments, and shoes.
FACT: Buckles did not come into fashion until later in the seventeenth century and black and white were commonly worn only on Sunday and formal occasions. Women typically dressed in red, earthy green, brown, blue, violet, and gray, while men wore clothing in white, beige, black, earthy green, and brown.
MYTH: The pilgrims brought furniture with them on the Mayflower.
FACT: The only furniture that the pilgrims brought on the Mayflower was chests and boxes. They constructed wooden furniture once they settled in Plymouth.
MYTH: The Mayflower was headed for Virginia, but due to a navigational mistake it ended up in Cape Cod Massachusetts.
FACT: The Pilgrims were in fact planning to settle in Virginia, but not the modern-day state of Virginia. They were part of the Virginia Company, which had the rights to most of the eastern seaboard of the U.S. The pilgrims had intended to go to the Hudson River region in New York State, which would have been considered "Northern Virginia," but they landed in Cape Cod instead. Treacherous seas prevented them from venturing further south
In 1621 the Plymouth colonists and the Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast which is now known as the first Thanksgiving. While cooking methods and table etiquette have changed as the holiday has evolved, the meal is still consumed today with the same spirit of celebration and overindulgence.
What foods topped the table at the first harvest feast? Historians aren't completely certain about the full bounty, but it's safe to say the pilgrims weren't gobbling up pumpkin pie or playing with their mashed potatoes. Following is a list of the foods that were available to the colonists at the time of the 1621 feast. However, the only two items that historians know for sure were on the menu are venison and wild fowl, which are mentioned in primary sources.
What "May" Have Been Served
SEAFOOD: Cod, Eel, Clams, Lobster
WILD FOWL: Wild Turkey, Goose, Duck, Crane, Swan, Partridge, Eagles
MEAT: Venison, Seal
GRAIN: Wheat Flour, Indian Corn
VEGETABLES: Pumpkin, Peas, Beans, Onions, Lettuce, Radishes, Carrots
FRUIT: Plums, Grapes
NUTS: Walnuts, Chestnuts, Acorns
HERBS and SEASONINGS: Olive Oil, Liverwort, Leeks, Dried Currants, Parsnips
What Was "Not" Served
Surprisingly, the following foods, all considered staples of the modern Thanksgiving meal, didn't appear on the pilgrims' first feast table:
HAM: There is no evidence that the colonists had butchered a pig by this time, though they had brought pigs with them from England.
SWEET POTATOES/POTATOES: These were not common.
CORN ON THE COB: Corn was kept dried out at this time of year.
CRANBERRY SAUCE: The colonists had cranberries but no sugar at this time.
PUMPKIN PIE: It's not a recipe that exists at this point, though the pilgrims had recipes for stewed pumpkin.
CHICKEN/EGGS: We know that the colonists brought hens with them from England, but it's unknown how many they had left at this point or whether the hens were still laying.
MILK: No cows had been aboard the Mayflower, though it's possible that the colonists used goat milk to make cheese.
The pilgrims didn't use forks; they ate with spoons, knives, and their fingers. They wiped their hands on large cloth napkins which they also used to pick up hot morsels of food. Salt would have been on the table at the harvest feast, and people would have sprinkled it on their food. Pepper, however, was something that they used for cooking but wasn't available on the table.
In the seventeenth century, a person's social standing determined what he or she ate. The best food was placed next to the most important people. People didn't tend to sample everything that was on the table (as we do today), they just ate what was closest to them.
Serving in the seventeenth century was very different from serving today. People weren't served their meals individually. Foods were served onto the table and then people took the food from the table and ate it. All the servers had to do was move the food from the place where it was cooked onto the table. Pilgrims didn't eat in courses as we do today. All of the different types of foods were placed on the table at the same time and people ate in any order they chose. Sometimes there were two courses, but each of them would contain both meat dishes, puddings, and sweets.
Our modern Thanksgiving repast is centered around the turkey, but that certainly wasn't the case at the pilgrims' feasts. Their meals included many different meats.
Vegetable dishes, one of the main components of our modern celebration, didn't really play a large part in the feast mentality of the seventeenth century. Depending on the time of year, many vegetables weren't available to the colonists.
The pilgrims probably didn't have pies or anything sweet at the harvest feast. They had brought some sugar with them on the Mayflower but by the time of the feast, the supply had dwindled. Also, they didn't have an oven so pies and cakes and breads were not possible at all.
The food that was eaten at the harvest feast would have seemed fatty by 1990's standards, but it was probably more healthy for the pilgrims than it would be for people today. The colonists were more active and needed more protein. Heart attack was the least of their worries. They were more concerned about the plague and pox.
People tend to think of English food at bland, but, in fact, the pilgrims used many spices, including cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, pepper, and dried fruit, in sauces for meats.
In the seventeenth century, cooks did not use proportions or talk about teaspoons and tablespoons. Instead, they just improvised.
The best way to cook things in the seventeenth century was to roast them. Among the pilgrims, someone was assigned to sit for hours at a time and turn the spit to make sure the meat was evenly done.
Since the pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians had no refrigeration in the seventeenth century, they tended to dry a lot of their foods to preserve them. They dried Indian corn, hams, fish, and herbs.
The biggest meal of the day for the colonists was eaten at noon and it was called noonmeat or dinner. The housewives would spend part of their morning cooking that meal.
Supper was a smaller meal that they had at the end of the day. Breakfast tended to be leftovers from the previous day's noonmeat.
In a pilgrim household, the adults sat down to eat and the children and servants waited on them. The foods that the colonists and Wampanoag Indians ate were very similar, but their eating patterns were different. While the colonists had set eating patterns - breakfast, dinner, and supper - the Wampanoags tended to eat when they were hungry and to have pots cooking throughout the day.
Question 1:
What year did the Pilgrims have their first Thanksgiving Feast?
1619
1620
1621
1935
The Pilgrims who sailed to this country aboard the Mayflower were originally members of the English Separatist Church (a Puritan sect). They had earlier fled their home in England and sailed to Holland (The Netherlands) to escape religious persecution. There, they enjoyed more religious tolerance, but they eventually became disenchanted with the Dutch way of life, thinking it ungodly. Seeking a better life, the Separatists negotiated with a London stock company to finance a pilgrimage to America. Most of those making the trip aboard the Mayflower were non-Separatists, but were hired to protect the company's interests. Only about one-third of the original colonists were Separatists.
The Pilgrims set ground at Plymouth Rock on December 11, 1620. Their first winter was devastating. At the beginning of the following fall, they had lost 46 of the original 102 who sailed on the Mayflower. But the harvest of 1621 was a bountiful one. And the remaining colonists decided to celebrate with a feast -- including 91 Indians who had helped the Pilgrims survive their first year. It is believed that the Pilgrims would not have made it through the year without the help of the natives. The feast was more of a traditional English harvest festival than a true "thanksgiving" observance. It lasted three days.
Question 2:
What food was probably NOT on the Pilgrims' Thanksgiving menu?
Potatoes
Corn
Fish
Dried Fruit
Governor William Bradford sent "four men fowling" after wild ducks and geese. It is not certain that wild turkey was part of their feast. However, it is certain that they had venison. The term "turkey" was used by the Pilgrims to mean any sort of wild fowl.
Another modern staple at almost every Thanksgiving table is pumpkin pie. But it is unlikely that the first feast included that treat. The supply of flour had been long diminished, so there was no bread or pastries of any kind. However, they did eat boiled pumpkin, and they produced a type of fried bread from their corn crop. There was also no milk, cider, potatoes, or butter. There was no domestic cattle for dairy products, and the newly-discovered potato was still considered by many Europeans to be poisonous. But the feast did include fish, berries, watercress, lobster, dried fruit, clams, venison, and plums.
Question 3:
In 1676, a day of thanksgiving was proclaimed to take place during what month?
May
June
October
November
On June 20, 1676, the governing council of Charlestown, Massachusetts, held a meeting to determine how best to express thanks for the good fortune that had seen their community securely established. By unanimous vote they instructed Edward Rawson, the clerk, to proclaim June 29 as a day of thanksgiving. It is notable that this thanksgiving celebration probably did not include the Indians, as the celebration was meant partly to be in recognition of the colonists' recent victory over the "heathen natives,"
Question 4:
What president didn't like the idea of having a national Thanksgiving Day?
Washington
Nixon
Truman
Jefferson
October of 1777 marked the first time that all 13 colonies joined in a thanksgiving celebration. It also commemorated the patriotic victory over the British at Saratoga. But it was a one-time affair.
George Washington proclaimed a National Day of Thanksgiving in 1789, although some were opposed to it. There was discord among the colonies, many feeling the hardships of a few Pilgrims did not warrant a national holiday. And later, President Thomas Jefferson scoffed at the idea of having a day of thanksgiving.
Question 5:
Who is credited with leading the crusade to establish Thanksgiving Day?
Sarah Jessica Parker
Sarah Lee
Sarah Josepha Hale
Sarah Ferguson
It was Sarah Josepha Hale, a magazine editor, whose efforts eventually led to what we recognize as Thanksgiving. Hale wrote many editorials championing her cause in her Boston Ladies' Magazine, and later, in Godey's Lady's Book. Finally, after a 40-year campaign of writing editorials and letters to governors and presidents, Hale's obsession became a reality.
Question 6:
Which president first established the date of Thanksgiving as a national celebration?
Jefferson
Adams
Lincoln
Wilson
In 1863, President Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday in November as a national day of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was proclaimed by every president after Lincoln.
Question 7:
Which president moved the date of Thanksgiving twice?
Lincoln
T. Roosevelt
F. D. Roosevelt
Eisenhower
The date was changed a couple of times, most recently by Franklin Roosevelt .
Question 8:
The reason Thanksgiving was moved up a week was...
To fullfil a political promise
To ward off evil spirits
Due to public pressure
To create a longer Christmas shopping season
The date was changed a couple of times, most recently by Franklin Roosevelt, who set it up one week to the next-to-last Thursday in order to create a longer Christmas shopping season. Public uproar against this decision caused the president to move Thanksgiving back to its original date two years later. And in 1941, Thanksgiving was finally sanctioned by Congress as a legal holiday, as the fourth Thursday in November.
