Happy Thanksgiving from ASPPA Net!

ASPPA Connect will not be appearing on Friday, Nov. 25 as our offices will be closed in observance of Thanksgiving. The NTSA Advisor will return on Monday, Nov. 28. We wish you a Happy Thanksgiving! 

The famed first Thanksgiving took place a mere 401 years ago. So what was it really like? 

In a letter of Dec. 11, 1621 Chronicler Edward Winslow wrote to a friend that Plymouth Colony Governor William Bradford sent four men on a fowling mission in preparation for a three-day feast:

"Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruits of our labors; they four in one day killed as much fowl, as with a little help beside, served the Company almost a week.”

The first winter in future Massachusetts was a severe and lethal one for many of the colonists, and in their first days food was not plentiful. But what a difference a year can make. Bradford writes in his history of the colony that in the fall of 1621, “there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc.” In addition, there were crops they grew with the help of their Native American neighbors. 

The Menu

It is likely that the menu for that feast included: 

• local fowl: turkey, duck, goose, and swan, perhaps stuffed with herbs, onions or nuts
• venison
• local seafood: mussels (which the colonists sometimes served with curds), lobster, bass, clams, and oysters 
• local vegetables: onions, beans, lettuce, spinach, cabbage, carrots, and peas
• corn, likely removed from the cob and turned into cornmeal, boiled and pounded into a mush or porridge sweetened with molasses
• local fruits: blueberries, plums, grapes, gooseberries, raspberries and, cranberries (although they had used up their supply of sugar, so the cranberries would have been QUITE TART)
• local pumpkins and squashes — but not in pies. In those earliest days, there was no way to make a crust nor bake, and early English settlers instead hollowed out pumpkins, filled the shells with milk, honey and spices to make a custard, then roasted them. 

The Guest List

About 50 colonists had survived the first winter, and accounts report that that included 22 men, four women, and more than 25 children and teenagers. Winslow wrote that they were joined by many of the local Native Americans, including King Massasoit and 90 men; they brought five deer to contribute to the feast. The first colonial potluck!