Partakers of plenty

by James Deetz; Jay Anderson

The Pilgrims also had an American pudding—which later, encased in a pastry crust, became the Thanksgiving dish pumpkin pie. In October 1621, lacking the wheat or rye flour to make a pie crust, they probably cooked pumpkins as a side dish. Josselyn described this

“ancient New-England standing dish ... the housewives manner is to slice them when ripe, and cut them into dice, and so fill a pot with them of two or three gallons, and stew them upon a gentle fire a whole day, and as they sink, they fill again with fresh pompions, not putting any liquor to them; and when it is stew’d enough, it will look like bak’d apples; this they dish, putting butter to it, and a little vinegar (with some spice, and ginger, etc.) which makes it tart liken an apple, and so serve it up to be eaten with fish or flesh.”

Cakes and ale ended the feast. The cakes were made of corn—roasted, pounded in homemade mortar and pestle, mixed into a paste with water, and fried on a griddle into thin, crisp “pan” cakes. Crumbly and dry, they complemented the strong, sweet ale that was drunk with them. Ale and hop-flavored beer were fermented from malted (germinated and roasted) barley at home. The alcohol content ranged from 4 to 8 per cent—the stronger was brought out for holidays like Harvest Home. The Pilgrims’ first ale and beer were brought over on the Mayflower and soon ran short. So precious were they that, when Bradford was sick and asked the sailors for a small can (quart) of beer, they replied that even if he “were their own father he should have none.” So water was drunk throughout the summer of 1621 but was considered an “enemy of health, cause of disease, consumer of natural vigour, and the bodies of men.” The “indifferent good barley” of August probably became October’s strong harvest beer. It would not last long, but they were fortunate to have it.

The food at this first American Harvest Home was notable then, “not for variety of messes [dishes], but for solid sufficiency.” Like the Pilgrims themselves, it was rooted in the good earth and culture of yeoman England. And after the initial shock of transplantation both the people and their food grew strong in their new home. They recognized the significance of what had been done, and, venison pie in one hand and leather mug of ale in the other, each celebrated with gusto the achievement. It was the best of times.

So it is that, when twentieth-century Americans celebrate their Thanksgiving, they are continuing a tradition that is older than the nation itself. Many of the features of the modern version—feasting, the menu in part, and athletic contests—are in the spirit of America’s first Harvest Home. The religious component of Thanksgiving, and even the act of giving thanks, are later additions. In Plymouth the fall observance of harvest and the expressing of thanks to God for his blessing varied from year to year between secular feastings and sacred days of fast. In 1623, only two years after the first Harvest Home festival, the colony formally gave thanks to God for ending a severe drought that threatened their crops. No rain fell from mid-May through late July, and the corn “languished sore.” Bradford tells us that

“they set apart a solemn day of humiliation, to seek the Lord by humble and fervent prayer, in this great distress.... And afterwards the Lord sent them such seasonable showers, with interchange of fair warm weather as, through His blessings, caused a fruitful and liberal harvest, to their no small comfort and rejoicing. For which mercy, in time convenient, they also set apart a day of thanksgiving.”

The day so designated was one of solemn thanks to God, and bore no resemblance to the happy event of two years before. Indeed, such days were set aside with frequent regularity in both the Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth colonies; the records abound with them. They were not exclusively related to bountiful harvests but were set aside for any act of God deemed worthy and in need of acknowledgement.

In sharp contrast to our traditional concept of Thanksgiving, the celebration of 1621 was a part of the harvest itself, and had the corn also been “indifferent good,” chances are that some festival, perhaps not as spectacular, would still have occurred. Such is the strength of folk culture and tradition the world over, and so it was at Plymouth in the fall of 1621.