The origins of your favorite Thanksgiving staples

By Noor Memarzadeh, Staff Writer

Thanksgiving. A holiday infamously known for giving thanks over a delicious meal. Many families spend hours each year preparing a variety of dishes for the dinner table, often focused on the amount of seasoning a recipe calls for and how long a plate must be cooked. However, one thing that is not typically thought about is the history associated with traditional Thanksgiving foods, and why they are now considered staple items on the table. 

Turkey is arguably the most important dish of Thanksgiving. However, very few people know why it became so popular in the first place. A common misconception about turkey is that the dish is served because it was originally eaten during the First Thanksgiving. Instead, the Wampanoag Native Americans brought deer while the pilgrims brought wild “fowl,” which is believed to have been either duck or geese. Turkey gained popularity in the 19th century, mainly because of their large size which allowed them to feed big families, along with how common they were in America at the time. 

Another popular item on the Thanksgiving table is pumpkin pie. This sweet and delicious dessert became an important holiday meal because of the Thanksgiving dinner menu created by magazine editor Sarah Josepha Hale in the mid-1800s. Hale was inspired by some of the ingredients that were present during the first Thanksgiving and created the recipe with a more modern twist. After she published the recipe, Americans fell in love with the dessert and it became the iconic dish that it is today. Coincidentally, Hale was also the woman who made Thanksgiving an official holiday.

Art by Ella Rose

Cranberries, but more specifically cranberry sauce, are yet another unforgettable food usually made for the holiday. Though there is no official record of the foods present at the first Thanksgiving, it is likely that there was a dish that included cranberries, as they were popular amongst the Wampanoag Native Americans. The colonizers took a liking to the berries, and with time they became a very important food to Americans. In fact, cranberry sauce became so popular during the Civil War that army General Ulysses S. Grant made sure to include it in the soldiers’ Thanksgiving meals.

The current Thanksgiving spread that we have today has evolved throughout history and time. From the very first meal shared between the pilgrims and the Wampanoag Native Americans, to today, dishes changed based on availability and popularity until they reached the delicious array of foods now present on our Thanksgiving tables. 

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