According to Kathleen Wall, a foodways culinarian, the Wampanoag, like most eastern woodlands people, had a "varied and extremely good diet." The forest provided chestnuts, walnuts and beechnuts. They grew flint corn, and that was their staple. They grew beans, which they used from when they were small and green until when they were mature. They also had different sorts of pumpkins or squashes.

    As we are taught in school, the Indians showed the colonists how to plant native crops. "The English colonists plant gardens in March of 1620 and 1621," says Wall. "We don't know exactly what's in those gardens. But in later sources, they talk about turnips, carrots, onions, garlic and pumpkins as the sorts of things that they were growing.”

    In England during that period, you see lots of pies in the first course and in the second course, meat and fish pies. The colonists did not have butter and wheat flour to make crusts for pies and tarts. To make up for it, they must have eaten lots of meat.

    Meat without potatoes, that is. White potatoes, originating in South America, and sweet potatoes, from the Caribbean, had yet to infiltrate North America. Also, there would have been no cranberry sauce. It would be another 50 years before an Englishman wrote about boiling cranberries and sugar into a "sauce to eat with meat."

    Wall explains that the Thanksgiving holiday, as we know it, took root in the mid-19th century.

    Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of the popular women's magazine Godey's Lady's Book, a real trendsetter for running a household, was a leading voice in establishing Thanksgiving as an annual event. Beginning in 1827, Hale petitioned 13 presidents, the last of whom was Abraham Lincoln. She pitched her idea to Lincoln as a way to unite the country in the midst of the Civil War, and, in 1863, he made Thanksgiving a national holiday.

    Throughout her campaign, Hale printed Thanksgiving recipes and menus in her magazine. She also published close to a dozen cookbooks. A lot of the food that we think of—roast turkey with sage dressing, creamed onions, mashed turnips, even some of the mashed potato dishes, which were kind of exotic then—are there.

    Words to Learn 相关词汇

    渗入

    shènrù

    infiltrate

    enter without being noticed

    推销

    tuīxiāo

    pitch

    aim to sell something to a specified market or on a specified basis

    感恩节大餐的由来

    饮食文化厨师凯思琳·沃尔说，万帕诺亚格人像大多数东方林地居民一样，“饮食多样且非常健康”。森林里有栗子、核桃和山毛榉坚果。“他们种硬粒玉米作为主食。他们还种豆，从又小又绿到成熟，任何时候都可以吃。”沃尔说。“他们还种南瓜西葫芦。”

    我们从课堂上得知，印第安人教殖民者种植当地作物。“英国殖民者在1620年和1621年的3月开辟了菜园，”沃尔说，“我们不确定当时园子里种了什么。但之后的文献中，他们谈到了萝卜、胡萝卜、洋葱、大蒜和南瓜之类的东西。”

    同一时期在英国，餐桌第一道菜你会看到许多馅饼，第二道菜是肉和鱼饼。殖民地居民没有黄油和小麦面粉，没法做馅饼的饼皮。作为弥补，他们一定吃很多肉。

    没有土豆的肉，就是这样。马玲薯源自南美，番薯源自加勒比海，当时都还没传到北美。当时也没有蔓越莓酱。在那50年之后，才有英国文献记载把蔓越莓煮沸加糖做成“果酱，和肉一起吃。”

    沃尔说，我们所了解的感恩节确立于19世纪中期。

    萨拉·约瑟法·黑尔是流行女性杂志《歌迪女士手册》的编辑，家居时尚风向标。是她倡导将感恩节定为年度节庆。从1827年开始，黑尔一共向13位总统请愿，最后一位是亚伯拉罕·林肯。美国南北战争期间她向林肯推销这个观点：感恩节可以增进国家团结。1863年，林肯将感恩节定为全国性假日。

    黑尔请愿期间在杂志上多次刊发感恩节食谱和菜单。她还在出版了超过十本食谱。我们今天想到的许多食物——涂了酱料的烤火鸡、奶油洋葱、萝卜泥、甚至当时还很新奇的土豆泥——都包含其中。”