The First Thanksgiving, 2008 Style

I was surfing online today and read an interesting article on the MSN home page about the first Thanksgiving. In case you didn't read that article or similar articles on most of the big search engine sites, or in case you didn't already know, turkey was not served at the first Thanksgiving back in the day in 1621. Instead, venison was the main entree served, along with duck and goose. I couldn't help but think of that tonight at supper when the 'Rents and I had grilled venison steaks. I'm pretty sure the Pilgrims and and their dinner guests the Wampanoag Indians didn't eat their venison grilled with a mesquite marinade like we did, but we all did have venison nonetheless.

The first Thanksgiving was truly a meal of thanksgiving - it was the Pilgrims' first big spread to celebrate their first harvest. Unfortunately we didn't have a big harvest to celebrate tonight at supper, but I guess we could have celebrated the 'Rents both being almost over their colds they've had for two weeks; if that's not worth celebrating with a big meal, I don't know what is.

As for side dishes, the Pilgrims didn't have mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, nor even sweet potatoes like most people have for Thanksgiving dinner today. They didn't have potatoes at that time, and most likely the main starch they had was Indian corn. They also had turnips, onions, spinach and carrots; unfortunately we didn't have anything like that with our venison steaks tonight - we had roasted potatoes and salad with raspberry vinaigrette.

There was no pumpkin pie on the menu at the first Thanksgiving either. They had pumpkin, but it was probably sliced and heated over the fire; there was no flour to bake a pie crust, and sugar and other sweet spices were very scarce. They also had plums and gooseberries for dessert. Unlike the Pilgrims and the Wampanoags, the 'Rents and I didn't have dessert tonight, so they were one up on us. And we had no intruders at The Compound during our dinner tonight. Unfortunately the Pilgrims couldn't say the same thing; the Wampanoags weren't invited to the Pilgrims first Thanksgiving -they were curious and just showed up. Not only did they show up, but they stayed there eating and visiting with the Pilgrims for three days. Now, that's overstaying your welcome if you ask me.