History of Thanksgiving
BU food anthropologist on the holiday’s roots, why we eat certain foods, and how parades and football became part
Little is known about what was served at the first Thanksgiving meal in 1621, except that it included fowl and venison. Maize, squashes and gourds, root vegetables, and berries would also have been served. Photo via Getty Images/GraphicaArtis
Before You Devour Your Thanksgiving Feast, Learn the Full Story behind the Meal and the Holiday
BU food anthropologist on the holiday’s roots, why we eat certain foods, and how parades and football became a part
On Thursday, people across the United States will sit down to tables laden with food to celebrate Thanksgiving, a holiday that traces its origins back to 1621, when Puritan colonists in Plymouth, Mass., gathered for a feast to celebrate their first successful harvest and invited Wampanoag Native Americans to join them.
Most of what’s known about the feast comes from an account by a Pilgrim named Edward Winslow, who wrote that the event lasted three days and that the menu included fowl and venison. The Pilgrims held a second feast two years later to give thanks for the end of a persistent drought. But it wasn’t until more than 150 years later—in 1863—that President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday.
How did the holiday evolve to become synonymous with turkey, mashed potatoes, apple, pecan, and pumpkin pies, football, and parades? How does the menu vary from one region of the country to another?
For answers to those questions and more we spoke with Karen Metheny, a historical archaeologist and anthropologist specializing in food studies scholarship and a master lecturer in gastronomy and archaeology at Boston University’s Metropolitan College.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q&A
with Karen Metheny
BU Today: What do we know about the first Thanksgiving and what might have been included on the menu?
Metheny: The “First Thanksgiving,” which took place in the fall of 1621 at the site of Patuxet (present-day Plymouth, Mass.), was reflective of several English traditions: a harvest festival, typically held in the autumn after the harvest was successfully brought in, as well as a religious tradition of fasting and prayer, followed by feasting. There are Native American traditions for giving thanks as well. So we have some context for a feast of “Thanksgiving”—really a harvest celebration—in the Plymouth Colony, recorded in a letter by Edward Winslow.
The passage is pretty vague. We know the feast occurred after the first harvest for the Plymouth colonists following a very difficult first winter and spring (1620-1621)—but we don’t know the dates. We also don’t know many specifics about the food that was consumed—fowl (waterfowl—likely geese and ducks), deer (venison), and whatever the fruits of the colonists’ labor produced (maize, planted with assistance of Native Americans; perhaps some root crops, greens, and herbs) and whatever the Wampanoag shared—almost certainly maize, beans, squash or other gourds—even pumpkin, but likely stewed, not a pie. No potatoes, mashed or otherwise. They would have eaten wild foods—berries (maybe even cranberries) might have been gathered by the Wampanoag, for example. Shellfish? Fish? Maybe. Wild turkey? Possibly.
What we can say about 1621 is that this was a shared, celebratory meal, one in which both Pilgrims and Native Wampanoags were active participants. But were there women present as well as men? Probably. Did they sit on furniture? Use a table? Sit inside or outside? We can speculate based on what we know about both English and Native foodways and customs, as well as the accounts of the colony’s first feast, but we don’t know for sure.
What is represented in today’s images of Thanksgiving is part of a constructed mythology of our nation’s origins—these are later, idealized versions, and they have become ingrained in our national identity. This mythologized version hides the diversity of American society and our immigrant origins. It also hides much of the conflict and tragedy associated with the European settlement of the Americas. Thanksgiving is marked by a National Day of Mourning by Native Americans, whose populations were decimated by European contact and settler colonialism.
BU Today: Thanksgiving didn’t become a national holiday until 1863. What was behind President Lincoln’s decision to make it a national holiday?
Interestingly, Sarah Josepha Hale, a New Hampshire resident, educator, activist, poet, children’s author, and editor of a nationally important magazine, Godey’s Lady’s Book, began petitioning the federal government in the 1840s to declare a National Day of Thanksgiving, but without success. She continued to press the nation’s leaders. Finally, during the Civil War, her petition was taken up by President Lincoln. Hoping to unify a badly divided country and comfort those who had suffered terrible losses since the outset of the war, Lincoln declared a National Day of Thanksgiving, to be celebrated on the last Thursday of November. This was just the third federal holiday to be declared. Only Independence Day and Washington’s birthday are older.
BU Today: So how was the day observed in the years between 1621 and 1863?
Before it became a national holiday, Thanksgiving was largely a New England tradition, one that featured regional foodways while continuing to build on this historical association with the Pilgrims, but also with autumn and the harvest. Correlations with the harvest, turkey, and pie-making are deeply embedded in New England. We can also locate many familiar Thanksgiving dishes in the earliest cookbooks written in North America. Amelia Simmons, author of American Cookery, the first cookbook published in America (Hartford, Conn., 1796), included recipes for many now-quintessential dishes—roast turkey with bread stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, boiled onions, cranberry sauce, mangos, pickles, and many, many types of pies.
BU Today: Can you talk about how the Thanksgiving menu today differs from region to region?
Each region of the country has developed its own favorites. In the South, your menu might include macaroni and cheese, sweet potato casserole with marshmallows, fried okra, cornbread dressing, skillet cornbread, creamed spinach, corn pudding, collard greens, pecan pie, and sweet potato pie with your turkey. In the Midwest, you might serve green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, cheesy hash brown casserole, and jello to accompany the meal. A Cajun Thanksgiving might include oven-roasted, deep-fried, or smoked turkey, cornbread dressing, deviled eggs (with sweet pickle relish, hot pepper sauce, and Cajun seasoning), Cajun rice, sweet potato casserole, gumbo, and jambalaya. It’s wonderful to see how much variation there is, both in the foods and the ways the meal is celebrated.
You can also see the impact of a changing food system—for example, industrialized food processing and convenience foods—on the Thanksgiving menu. Dorcas Reilly is credited with developing the recipe for green bean casserole. She worked for Campbell’s Soup, creating recipes that used their products. This recipe calls for Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup.
BU Today: Today, Thanksgiving is as well-known for parades and football as for turkey and pie. How did those traditions come about?
Professional football dates back to the last decade of the 19th century. College football goes back even further and college games on Thanksgiving Day reportedly date back to 1876. The tradition of playing professional and high school football games on Thanksgiving goes pretty far back as well. According to CBS, the Detroit Lions have been hosting Thanksgiving Day games since the 1930s, when the team’s then-owner thought a holiday game would increase attendance.
Gimbels department store hosted its first Thanksgiving Day Parade in Philadelphia in 1920 to promote the start of the Christmas retail season. Macy’s held its first Thanksgiving Day Parade just four years later. So these parades and games have been associated with the holiday for more than 100 years now.
BU Today: You teach an anthropology of food course where you invite your students to deconstruct a Thanksgiving meal and bring in a recipe that they make for the holiday. What are some that stand out?
Among the many variations of pie or stuffing or casseroles, there are a lot of regional dishes—sweet potato pie or Cajun cornbread stuffing, for example. Many of our students are new to American Thanksgiving, so they share recipes from a celebration or holiday they do know. One student described mooncakes, made for the Mid-Autumn or Mooncake Festival for Chinese immigrants in Indonesia. Another student, from Puerto Rico, described an eggnog called Coquito that’s served to welcome family and friends. Empanadas from Uruguay. Chocolate bundt cake for “Action de Grâce,” or Canadian Thanksgiving (October) in Québec. Whether the foods are traditional standards or creative variations, they all reflect the passion for food that our students share.
BU Today: What do these recipes tell us about the holiday?
The foods my students have described reflect cultural and historical traditions, but also show the impact of changing family structure, shifts in gender roles, health concerns and dietary needs, economics (budget), food preferences, and work dynamics, as well as the movement of people through immigration and migration, diaspora, and travel. They tell us that every culture has foods that are used to mark a celebration and welcome others. What my students show me is that Thanksgiving can be anything you want it to be—any foods, any guests you choose, any traditions you build and celebrate.
BU Today: Do you have a favorite recipe you prepare each year for your Thanksgiving meal?
My family and I traditionally spend Thanksgiving with my parents, my siblings, and their families. My daughter and I spend the Tuesday or Wednesday before the holiday baking apple and pumpkin pies. There’s nothing unusual about these recipes, but it’s definitely our tradition to make them each year. Wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without them!
BU Today: Is there any easy-to-make dish you’d recommend for others to make?
I really like the cranberry orange relish recipe that’s on the Ocean Spray cranberries bag—one bag of cranberries, half an orange, some sugar (maybe ¾ of a cup)—and you can run it through your food processor. It’s nice and uncomplicated and makes a great side dish—one you can prep before you get caught up with everything else.
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