• Turkey is a traditional main course for Thanksgiving meals.turkey image by Diane Stamatelatos from Fotolia.com
  
  Thanksgiving is a fall celebration of thanks for good health, family and a bountiful harvest. The first Thanksgiving, in 1621, was celebrated by English pilgrims and native Americans, and, although cooking techniques and food availability have changed over the years, many of the foods eaten at the first celebration are included as part of the traditional Thanksgiving dinner today.
  
  

Meats

• Evidence exists that colonists and natives dined on wild fowl at the first Thanksgiving, which likely included turkey, duck, eagle or goose, in addition to venison and other game meats and fish. Turkey is still highly popular as a traditional Thanksgiving meat. The most basic and traditional turkey preparation is oven-roasting, and herb butter injection is one modern way to add more flavor and moisture to a roasted bird. Deep-frying and smoking are other options to add new flavor and texture to this time-tested fowl. Serve game fowl as an option to recreate an original Thanksgiving menu. Both duck and goose can be roasted, but these birds are much fattier than turkey, so be sure to prick the skin with a fork so fat can drain out during cooking. The relatively new tradition of turducken--a chicken stuffed inside a duck stuffed inside a turkey--could be a choice to please all tastes.
  
  

Vegetables

• Many of the vegetables eaten by the pilgrims are still common in the modern Thanksgiving meal, simply because of the convenience of using seasonal vegetables. The first Thanksgiving menu likely included familiar vegetables, such as squash, beans, peas, lettuce, carrots, radishes and onions, as well as more unusual choices, like leeks, parsnips and Jerusalem artichokes. Most of the familiar vegetables are still common in today's traditional holiday meal, although some preparation methods have surely changed to include lavish salads and green bean and onion casseroles made with condensed soup. Squash can be prepared in a manner similar to the original Thanksgiving recipe, which entailed cooking squash over hot coals and sweetening with honey or maple syrup. A modern alternative is to replace the coals with an oven and bake butternut or acorn squash until fork-tender before adding butter and honey during the last 10 minutes of cooking. Although popular today, it is unlikely that sweet potatoes or yams were served at the first Thanksgiving, because they were not common crops in the Massachusetts area at the time.
  
  

Starches

• Stuffing, or dressing, is common in the modern Thanksgiving meal, but both were unlikely during the first Thanksgiving feast. Recipes for stuffings made from bread crumbs date to the late 1700s in America; however, it is possible that pilgrims stuffed fowl with an assortment of indigenous nuts, such as walnuts, chestnuts or acorns. Oyster dressing was common in the Northeast, but it was generally not associated with Thanksgiving or fowl. Today, oyster dressing is most familiar as part of a Southern or Creole Thanksgiving feast. Mashed potatoes are a traditional starch for Thanksgiving. In the mid-1600s, potatoes were just introduced into the English diet, and were still too rare and unfamiliar to become the comfort food we know today.
  
  

Dessert

• Pumpkin pie is commonly associated with Thanksgiving, but European recipes date this dessert to mid 17th century France, several decades after the Mayflower landed. Early New World colonists did not feast on this traditional Thanksgiving dessert, although they may have eaten stewed pumpkin. Although cranberries may have been available at the first Thanksgiving, without accompanying the cranberries with sugar, which would not have been readily available, the pilgrims would have been unable to create the sweet, jellied cranberry sauce familiar at today's traditional Thanksgiving dinners. Instead, dessert likely consisted of local fruits, such as plums, apples or grapes, which may have been stewed together to create a fruit compote or pudding.