Posted by: Oksana Kluchko, Journalist/Embassy Community Member
"The First Thanksgiving" (1915), by Jean Louis Gerome Ferris (American painter, 1863-1930)
Thanksgiving Day is a truly great American holiday. It commemorates a series of events which took place in the 17th Century. It was on December 11, 1620 that the Pilgrims set ground on Plymouth Rock. Their first winter was devastating. At the beginning of the following fall, they had lost 46 of the original 102 who sailed on the Mayflower. But the harvest of 1621 was a bountiful one. And the remaining colonists decided to celebrate with a feast — including 91 Native Americans who helped the Pilgrims survive their first year. The feast was celebrated as a traditional English harvest festival that lasted three days.
Their supply of flour had been long diminished, so there was no bread or pastries of any kind. However, they did eat boiled pumpkin, and they produced a type of fried bread from their corn crop. There was also no milk, cider, potatoes, or butter. There were no domestic cattle for dairy products, and the newly-discovered potato was still considered by many Europeans to be poisonous. But the feast did include turkey, fish, berries, lobster, dried fruit, clams, venison, and plums. (more…)
