11 Thanksgiving Dishes the Pilgrims Never Had

The legend of the first Thanksgiving has been widely romanticized, with very few concrete facts remaining. Most of the details we know about that event are based on a letter written by Edward Winslow, the leader of Plymouth Colony, in December 1621. He described a harvest feast shared with the Wampanoag tribe, lasting for three days in late autumn. The meal would have looked drastically different from the Thanksgiving spread we know today, which typically includes green bean casserole, marshmallow-topped sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie. The actual menu featured venison and wild birds.

While we can't say with certainty which foods were served, we do know that many of the modern-day Thanksgiving staples were nowhere to be found. As you enjoy your meal this fourth Thursday in November, take a moment to appreciate the dishes that weren't easily accessible in 1621.

Green Bean Casserole

A lot of the produce commonly linked to Thanksgiving wasn’t part of the Pilgrims’ feast. This likely includes green beans, and green bean casserole certainly didn’t make its way to the first Thanksgiving table. The recipe for this dish, which involves green beans baked with cream of mushroom soup and topped with fried onions, was created by Campbell’s employee Dorcas Reilly in 1955, intended for the back of soup cans. When compared to many of the so-called 'traditional' Thanksgiving dishes, green bean casserole is quite modern.

Pumpkin Pie

Pumpkin pie wasn’t served as dessert during the first Thanksgiving—nor was any pie, for that matter. The Pilgrims likely didn’t have access to essential pie-making ingredients, like butter, flour, or even ovens. However, this doesn’t mean pumpkin was left off the menu. The squash is native to the Americas, and cooks at the first Thanksgiving may have roasted it whole or stewed it in a pot.

Gravy

Without flour, there was no traditional gravy to accompany the venison and waterfowl on the table. While it’s possible the cooks saved drippings from the meat, it would not have been the familiar, thickened gravy we enjoy today. Instead, a condiment that may have made an appearance on the table was green sauce, a mixture of ingredients like squash, onions, and spinach, cooked down into a dense paste. Now, turkey gravy doesn’t seem so tempting in comparison.

Cranberry Sauce

Sugar, a key ingredient in many recipes, was also missing from the Pilgrims’ pantries. Without it, they couldn't have cooked down the local cranberries into a sweet sauce. The Wampanoag were known to gather cranberries from local bogs, drying them for use throughout the winter. However, there were no cranberry bogs in the immediate area of Plymouth Colony, meaning the first Thanksgiving may have lacked cranberries—in sauce form or otherwise.

Mashed Potatoes

Potatoes, originally from South America, hadn't yet reached New England by the time of the first Thanksgiving in 1621. It might actually be a blessing in disguise, as mashed potatoes wouldn’t have been nearly as fun without the iconic gravy volcano.

Apple pie

Apple pie was also absent from the first Thanksgiving, as both its crust and key ingredient—the apples—hadn’t yet made their way to New England. However, by the mid-1600s, cider became a favorite drink among the colonists.

Wheat rolls

In 1621, the Pilgrims didn’t have wheat flour to make traditional bread rolls. Instead, the first Thanksgiving meal featured cornbread made by the Wampanoag.

Macaroni and cheese

This beloved southern Thanksgiving dish wasn’t on the menu at the first Thanksgiving. Not only was pasta unavailable, but macaroni and cheese was not yet a popular dish in America. Thomas Jefferson is often credited with introducing the dish to U.S. cuisine in the 19th century after he encountered it in France.

Turkey

That’s right—the food we associate with Thanksgiving likely wasn’t part of the original feast. Turkeys were not common game at the time. However, we know the guests likely enjoyed some type of wild fowl, such as ducks, geese, swans, or even passenger pigeons, which were more likely to have been served than turkey.

Sweet potato casserole

Sweet potatoes hadn’t yet made their way to New England from the Caribbean by 1621. The famous mini-marshmallows we top the dish with today weren’t available either in the Plymouth Colony.

Bread stuffing

Modern stuffing—or dressing—is typically made with cubed bread, spices, vegetables, and sometimes meat. The stuffing used to fill the fowl at the first Thanksgiving, however, didn’t include any bread. Instead, onions and nuts were the key ingredients in the Pilgrims’ breadless stuffing.