On the contrary.
Instead of turkey, potatoes, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie, the Pilgrims and Indians ate less-traditional dishes at their three-day harvest celebration. According to written and oral accounts, the Wampanoag Indians brought five deer to the feast to share with English settlers. They also ate wild fowl, nasaump (dried corn pounded and boiled into a thick porridge), and pompion (cooked mashed pumpkin).
Other foods that Americans commonly eat on Thanksgiving would have been unavailable to the Pilgrims and native Americans. Potatoes and sweet potatoes, for instance, weren’t grown in New England until the 18th century.
According to Jennifer Monac, a spokeswomen for the Plimoth Plantation living-history museum, the feasters likely supplemented their venison and birds with fish, lobster, clams, nuts and wheat flour, and vegetable such as squash, carrots, and peas.
“They ate seasonally,” Ms. Monac writes in an article for the National Geographic website, “and this was the time of the year when they were really feasting. There were lots of vegetables around because the harvest had been brought in.”
Modern Thanksgiving food selections can be attributed to 19th century author and magazine editor Sarah Josepha Hale, who published recipes for turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie in the popular Godey’s Lady’s Book. Hale in 1863 also successfully lobbied President Lincoln to support legislation establishing Thanksgiving as a national holiday.
