Of eel, seal and other early Thanksgiving offerings

Today's traditional meal of turkey and dressing wasn't always the norm.

Turkey and dressing (or stuffing for those north of the Mason-Dixon line), Ham, cranberry sauce, candied yams, corn, deviled eggs, giblet gravy, bread or rolls, and pumpkin or pecan pie.

These are just some of the things Becky Shinabery of Marked Tree, Mary Etta Stanley of Tyronza and Judy Bradford will be serving tomorrow (Thursday).

Traditional Thanksgiving fare all the way back to the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving, right? Well, partially.

In the first place the celebration of the colonists and Wampanoag Indians in 1621 wasn't the first celebration of its sort. Keep in mind that Native Americans were in the Americas for centuries prior to the arrival of Columbus much less the Pilgrims.

In those centuries all of the "First People," as they are called in Canada, had a celebration at the end of each growing season to celebrate the harvest. The Pueblo, Cherokee, Creek were just some of the tribes who annually celebrated the bounty. But the festivities didn't end with just a meal, there were harvest festivals, ceremonial dances and other celebrations of thanks to the various gods in the people's beliefs.

The thinking that the Pilgrims were the first probably derives from the fact that they came to the shores of America seeking religious freedom plus the fact that they came from England. However, there was a group which preceded the Pilgrims by some 50 years landing not at Massachusetts, but at St. Augustine in what would be Florida.

According to the newly published book, America's Hidden History: Untold Tales of the First Pilgrims, Fighting Women, and Forgotten Founders Who Shaped a Nation by Kenneth C. Davis, these Pilgrims were "Protestants seeking freedom from the religious wars raging across France and much of Europe. And like those later Pilgrims, they too wanted religious freedom and the chance of a new life."

But even though they came to the America's nearly a half century before, they didn't receive the acclaim of the Massachusetts Pilgrims in large part because they weren't English and settled in a far more remote area. As a result the Plymouth Pilgrims became the bedrock on which all traditional Thanksgivings have been celebrated.

Originally setting sail in September 1620 with 102 people on board, by the time the Mayflower arrived in the New World 66 days later, vivaciously, only one person had died. But by the time of the celebration over a year later only 53 people had survived the hardships of the subsequent first year in America. The records show that those 52 constituted 22 men, four married women, five adolescent girls, nine adolescent boys and thirteen young children who celebrated their first Thanksgiving in October 1621.

But once again, what about the food?

Yes, there was turkey there……wild turkey that is (the bird not the bourbon) since that was the only kind available. And pumpkin pie could have been on the bill of fare as pumpkins were among the vegetables available plus the normal spices used in pumpkin pie. However, no known pumpkin pie recipe exists from this time and so it's thought that this Thanksgiving staple came about many years later.

But what about the rest. Well according to History.com most of what we eat today wouldn't have been there.

Take ham for instance. There's no evidence that the colonists had butchered a hog by this time even though they brought hogs with them (imagine 66 days of pig manure on the Mayflower).

How about potatoes, either sweet or Irish? Not likely because neither one was in abundance in the area. And while Indian or wild corn was available, most if not all of the edible corn would have been in the process of being dried out for the year so it would be ready to be used as seed the subsequent growing season.

Well what about cranberry sauce then? Well they did have the cranberries, but they had no sugar as yet and cranberries without equal parts of sugar are virtually inedible.

Dressing or stuffing, were either one available in 1621? Once again there is no record of either. And as far as giblet gravy, there were definitely turkey gizzards and flour which could be used. But boiled eggs likely wouldn't have made it to the table in the form of a giblet additive or deviled. The reason is that while the Pilgrims did bring chickens with them, probably not many if any survived the trek and first months. And if they even did survive, poultry experts believe the trauma of all the going-ons would have made them stop laying.

And for recipes which required milk, forget it unless goats milk could be substituted because there was no room for cattle on the Mayflower.

Well, then, one might ask what was available for the 1621 Thanksgiving meal. Well there was plenty, but not what most people might think. First of all, they were blessed with an abundance of wild game and fowl besides Turkey. Goose, duck and venison were in great abundance and can likely be found at any present day "wild game supper." Not as common on the table today but in demand then were crane, swan, partridge, pigeon and eagles.

And of course being near the ocean, seafood was readily available. Cod, clams and lobster were just some of the delicacies as were eel and seal. So clearly, the first thanksgiving was a meat lover's paradise.

Vegetables, however, weren't absent. Peas, beans, onions, lettuce, radishes, carrots, leeks and parsnips were plentiful. For fruits and nuts there's evidence that plums, grapes, walnuts, chestnuts, hickory nuts and acorns made their appearance.

When asked what she thought of the menu at Plymouth colony, Shinabery said that at least it would have had a lot of protein.

"It would be a lot better for you probably than eating a big meal, taking a nap or watching a football game then eating the leftovers later that day and for a while after," she said.

Bradford said the people of today are more diversified in their foods.

"I'm sure there was a great variety in what they could gather," she said. "And they were thankful in what they could gather as well as just being able to survive. I think in most ways we're still thankful, but for different things than they were."

Stanley heard about the type of hardships the Pilgrims had to go through and was reminded of the present hardships in the country.

"If things don't change we may have to go back to eating things like eagles and pigeons and eels and anything else we can find," Stanley said. "People don't know how thankful they should be for what we have in this country. If it got back to where we had to forage for ourselves and hunt our food, a lot of the younger generation would starve to death. I'm worried about my grandkids that they wouldn't be able to make it. They wouldn't know how."

Whether people will ever have to go back to eating eel or eagle or seal is unknown at this time. But like the Pilgrims of Plymouth Rock, there will be enough people who possess a pioneer spirit that the country they helped found will survive. And when that occurs, they will, no doubt, continue to be thankful with that expression of thanks, as always, tied to a large, bountiful meal.