Practically speaking, almost everyone four hundred years ago was a locovore. And sure enough, in the autumn of 1621, the Plymouth colonists had enough local fare to celebrate a traditional harvest festival similar to ones they had observed in old England.

This is all we know about that celebration and its menu: Edward Winslow wrote a letter in December 1621 to a friend in England, saying, “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. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming in amongst us, and among the rest their great king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captaine and others….”

So, unspecified fowl, venison, and a harvest of corn, and probably pumpkins and squash, and several days of eating, sporting, and for the women, cooking and cleaning up. Anything else is conjecture.

Given the local nature, then, of the meal, the fowl may have included turkey and waterfowl. There may have been some shellfish like mussels. Since there was precious little sugar or spice, we have to assume the pumpkin was stewed and eaten plain. It would take a few years to have fruit-bearing apple trees, so we know there was no apple pie. The corn was probably cracked and prepared as we would cook rice. Maybe someone gathered wild cranberries. Perhaps some spinach was still green in the settler’s garden patches.

Subsequently, our traditional Thanksgiving menu of turkey, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, etc. attributed to our Pilgrim forefathers was not based on fact, but was rather a nostalgic view based on habits developed in New England from the 18th century into the 19th. Our menu is a seasonal, local menu. That green bean dish wasn’t added until the 1950s and, of course, there is nothing local about it.

Sandy Oliver is a Food Historian, Author, MF&L columnist: The Way Things Were.