Entry #8: Why Turkey?
When you think of Thanksgiving, the first thing that comes to mind is the food. Whether it’s the turkey, cranberry sauce, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, or pumpkin pie. The thought of Thanksgiving came from the Pilgrims of Plymouth in 1621, but there wasn’t exactly a whole menu describing the feast. By saying this, have you ever thought why we eat the food we eat on this holiday?
Let us begin with the turkey. According to Mental Floss, a colonist who wrote a journal about the Pilgrims of Plymouth, Edward Winslow, wrote about the Thanksgiving feast they had. Although it didn’t exactly say they ate turkey, it mentioned they ate some type of bird. However, he did write about how they hunted turkey in the autumn of 1621, which was around the time they had the feast. People also believed it was turkey they ate, because turkey’s are mainly in North America. After Abraham Lincoln declared this a new national holiday in 1863, and due to the information gathered from Winslow’s journal, people began eating turkey in their Thanksgiving meals.
Another dish a lot of people enjoy is cranberry sauce. Although the first Thanksgiving by the pilgrims might’ve incorporated cranberries, it’s unlikely they had the sugar needed to produce the actual sauce. Many visitors of Plymouth in 1663 started commenting about a dish served with boiled cranberries and meat. It wasn’t until 1796 that Amelia Simmons suggested in the first American cookbook to add cranberry sauce to Thanksgiving meals. After developing harvesting techniques, Ocean Spray company began smushing cranberries into the canned delight that we now find in stores.
Next, where did sweet potato casserole come from? In 1621, the pilgrims didn’t have sweet potatoes or regular potatoes to incorporate in their meal. Of course, they also didn’t have marshmallows yet. However, Amelia Simmon’s cookbook included “potato pudding” which was mashed potatoes mixed with sugar. A century later, another cookbook included a recipe for candied sweet potatoes. For those of you wondering, marshmallows weren’t added to the dish until the 1900s when the Angelus Marshmallow company hired Boston Cooking School Magazine to create recipes incorporating their marshmallows. This is when sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top became a hit.
Although, green bean casserole has a pretty simple history. Dorcas Reilly was a Campbell’s test kitchen supervisor, and her job was to make new recipes using Campbell’s soups and other products. In 1955, she made a green bean casserole by using the company’s mushroom soup. Since then, you can find the recipe on the back of the Campbell’s soup cans.
Finally, where did the idea for pumpkin pie come from? The pilgrims may have had pumpkin’s included in their feast, however they most likely lacked the ingredients to make an actual pie. In fact, pumpkin pie didn’t become a huge dish for America until after the 18th century. Simmon’s cookbook included two recipes for “pompkin pudding,” which was strained and stewed pumpkin mixed with spices. Sarah Hale’s (mother of Thanksgiving) novel, which included pumpkin pie as a dessert in the Thanksgiving meal, was the main thing responsible for why pumpkin pie is such a known Thanksgiving dessert.
Therefore, these foods were created to become tradition throughout centuries of history. It’s so interesting learning about where the ideas of these foods actually came from. I wonder if these foods are close to what the pilgrims actually ate in their meals. What do you think the pilgrims actually ate as their Thanksgiving feast?
Interesting and timely topic.
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