in harvest his goose.
In England it would have been a domesticated bird, fattened on the grain stubble. In Plymouth it was a wild one, part of the large haul of fowl that Winslow mentions. William Bradford remembered many years later not only these waterfowl but also a “great store of wild turkeys.” These would certainly have been eaten, and with relish, but roast goose constituted the feast’s foundation. Englishmen preferred its flavor and housewives the ease with which it could be roasted.
The “flesh” pies Best referred to would have in England been filled with old chicken, hare, or pigeon meat, tenderized by hours of simmering and then baking. Plymouth, however, had a spectacular substitute: venison. This was the Elizabethan’s chief culinary status symbol, seldom eaten by ordinary farmers but continually craved. Kept in deer parks by the gentry, “... venison in England [was] neither bought nor sold, as in other countries, but maintained only for the pleasure of the owner and his friends.” The five deer donated by Massasoit were a great luxury. Served up in corn-meal venison “pasties,” they gave the feast an aristocratic aura the Plymouth farmers could never have foreseen, not having the guns or skills necessary to bring down a deer regularly. Ironically, venison soon became a symbol to Englishmen of New England’s natural bounty. A more realistic choice would have been the ducks and geese, which they could and did bring down in droves with their fowling pieces.
Pudding was the Harvest Home’s most typical dish, composed as it was of the cereals and fruits that had just been ingathered. A special harvest version called frumenty (or furmenty) became synonymous with the harvest feast itself and elicited the lines, “The furmenty pot welcomes home the harvestcart.” John Josselyn, a later visitor to New England, described a New England furmenty made with a variety of oats brought over from East Anglia by the Puritans (although whole-grain wheat, barley, or corn were just as suitable):
“They dry it in an oven, or in a pan upon the fire, then beat it small in a mortar ... they put into a bottle [two quarts] of milk about ten or twelve spoonsfuls of this meal, so boil it leisurely stirring of it every foot, lest it burn too; when it is almost boiled enough, they hand the kettle up higher and let it stew only, in short time it will thicken like a custard; they season it with a little sugar and spice, and so serve it to the table in deep basons.”
It was an expensive dish. To make up for their lack of sugar, the Pilgrims would have added many of the wild fruits mentioned by Winslow: grapes, berries, and plums. Though water can be used in place of milk for frumenty, milk was the preferred ingredient. An available milk supply might have existed, if goats were among the livestock brought on the Mayflower. While there is no specific mention of any animals being brought on that first ship, Winslow’s statement that “if we have once but kine, horses and sheep ... men might live as contented here as in any part of the world” suggests that goats and pigs may well have crossed the Atlantic with the Pilgrims.