Gov. William Bradford positions himself in the middle of Nye Barn at Plimoth Plantation. Outside, winds howl and rain beats in near-horizontal sheets against the muddy paths as he welcomes guests to the re-creation of the 1621 harvest feast - the only one attended by both Pilgrims and natives and known later as the first Thanksgiving.
At 35, the governor, played by Christopher Hall, seems young to be running Plimoth Plantation. He shuns the title, he says, because he doesn't feel as suited to the role as was Gov. John Carver, who died during the first, terrible year. "Master Carver was much more fitted to the job than I," Bradford says. "I'm more like a mayor. I was elected by my neighbors."With that pronouncement he seats himself at the head table on a "great chair," which is slightly more elevated than the three-legged chairs on which sit the church elder William Brewster and his wife, Mistress Mary Brewster. Bradford holds forth in front of a table full of English linens, handblown glasses, pewter cups, plates, chargers and pottery bowls. The servants and children bring the food - fowl from the Pilgrims and deer from the natives - and curtsy or bow to the head of the table first. As the platters go around, to both costumed Pilgrims and contemporary guests, Mistress Brewster (Lisa Walbridge) pulls off a piece of rabbit with her hand. Delighted with the array, she announces, "Some number of goodly meats, from king's meat to that which we feed our dogs. We are doubtful we shall eat this way again for a year."
PLIMOTH PLANTATION, a living history museum south of today's Plymouth, Mass., is peopled by costumed "interpreters" who speak early 17th-century dialect and portray colonists who really lived in Plimoth. Though it might make schoolchildren giggle - characters say things like "God by you," instead of "Bye, now," and people address one another as "Goodman," "Goodwife" or simply "Goody" - Gov. Bradford and Mistress Brewster and their fellow Separatists never tiptoe outside their era.
Working from documented biographical information, the interpreters have a sound feel for daily life in the new colony and an ability to make educated guesses about anything not chronicled. As they interact with visitors, they chat about fleeing to Holland for religious refuge, crossing the sea for 66 days, leaving older children at home and the terrible failures that ensued when they planted England's finest seeds in New England's unreceptive soil.
The first Thanksgiving was not held in a barn, of course, but outside, and neither were its participants as sweet-smelling as Gov. Bradford and Mistress Brewster. Nor is the real meal recorded anywhere. This re-creation menu has been cooked up (literally) by historians, headed by Kathleen Curtin, Plimoth's foodways manager.
"The image of the Plimoth Pilgrims and their Wampanoag neighbors sitting down to a peaceful feast in the golden autumn of 1621," writes James Baker, Plimoth vice president of research, "is so familiar that most people assume that the event is well documented and that the most minute details of that famous dinner are known to historians."
What historians actually have access to is skimpy. There are two brief descriptions written by Pilgrims, and there are various chronicles of English life before the crossing. English harvest feasts were commonplace in the early 17th century, Baker writes. The community gathered for a groaning board of meat, bread and beer. A harvest meant that laborers were leaving the land, and "a feast was a way to say thank you to farm workers," Curtin says. "The tradition continued in this country as well."
And, according to Native American custom, there have always been thanksgivings for crops and celebrations for green corn, the harvest and planting.
The 1621 feast, which included 50 Europeans (all who remained of the 100 who had landed) and 90 native guests, lasted for three days. "The event occurred between Sept. 21 and Nov. 11, 1621," Baker writes, "with the most likely time being around Michaelmas (Sept. 29), the traditional time."
The menu for a recent re-creation feast was culled from the Pilgrims' writings and from the list of foodstuffs known to have been brought over on the Mayflower.
"In the hold we carried everything with us we'd need for a year," says Elder Brewster (John Kemp). Brewster is a layman who acts as head of the church in the absence of Pastor John Robinson, the pastor having stayed behind with the other 200 Leiden Separatists who did not make the voyage. In his mid 50s, Brewster is the oldest member of the plantation.
Plimoth's re-creation feast boasts geese roasted over open fires of pine wood; rabbit (called "coney") fricasseed with herbs; plenty of lobsters; a savory Indian corn pudding and a sweetened corn pudding with "whorlberries" (a wild berry); roast venison with mustard sauce; boiled turkey "with a bellyful of herbs"; a brace of ducks; a dish of fruit and Dutch cheese (carried on the ship); a whole cod "seethed," or boiled, with onions and vinegar; and finally, stewed pumpkin ("pompion" to the Pilgrims).
"The key to developing a plausible re-creation is not to just present the simple foodstuffs," Baker writes, "but to also reflect the English middling-status culinary fashions of the time."
What the original feast did not include were three ingredients that the English considered necessary to any meal. "Not a drop of beer, scarce butter, no bread," Mistress Brewster explains. Nor were there forks on the table; instead, men draped large linen napkins over one shoulder while women set them on their laps. A small spoon was provided for some dishes, like sauced meats, and everyone had a knife for cutting. All the tableware came from England or Holland, and each family contributed pieces of pewter and glassware for the big celebration.
Prayer and song (to rest and revive the appetite, according to Elder Brewster) were part of the meal.
That first Thanksgiving meal was cooked by the four married women who survived the first winter, along with daughters and both male and female servants. "The whole town had to be pulled together," says Plimoth's Curtin. "Don't forget, there were 90 guests."
Plimoth's historians believe that the women would have used the crops the men did manage to raise, like the corn they learned to fertilize by burying herrings in the soil, as the English-speaking native Squanto had taught them. The corn was adapted to the cuisine they knew from England. Curtin says that they generally used corn to replace rice or oats in recipes.
They longed for bread but instead took Indian corn, cooked it like a pudding, formed it into a round, wrapped it in linen and boiled it in a kettle of water. Once cooled, it was sliced and eaten as bread.
In the new community, food and hierachy were intertwined. "If you're a person of better birth," Curtin says, "you have expectations of better things." In the 1621 re-creation, this might have accounted for the fricassee of rabbit, which is difficult to prepare, or the claret sauce for the roast duck.
"Guests ate the food closest to them at the table," Curtin says, "so nicer fixings went into the middle for the more important people. Less important people sat at the ends of the table." Ordinary people ate lesser cuts of meat; leaders ate better cuts, cooked in ways that required more attention at the fire.
The first generation of Pilgrims had a hard time switching diets from wheat to corn, Curtin says. All were getting used to new tastes and new foods. Many plants, like wheat and barley, did not grow well in Plimoth Plantation. While the settlers wanted to raise barley for beer and wheat for bread, they were unsuccessful at first. Historian Baker says the Pilgrims described the barley crop as "indifferent good" - they had no beer.
The Pilgrim settlement itself was an enterprise of "merchant adventurers" and "planters" who set up a joint stock company and "expected to be paid in land, not money." A man who had access to something others wanted (like wine or laborers) could trade it for more land.
Although many crops were difficult to raise on the New England coast, fish were plentiful. Cod became the common food most people ate, and though lobsters were just beginning to become known on English tables, the Pilgrims found them in great quantity in the new land.
Five deer presented to the Pilgrims by King Massasoit and his men were stewed or roasted over open fires, turned frequently, then presented with mustard sauce. The two work together, Mistress Brewster explains.
The "mustard is hot and dry," she says. "The sauce has a goodly amount of vinegar." She dips the venison in the sauce, she explains, to balance "the humors," or the disposition.