Thanksgiving Myths, Foods & Forgotten Traditions- Bonus Holiday Episode

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Thanksgiving Myths, Foods & Forgotten Traditions"

Podcast: Something You Should Know
Host: Mike Carruthers
Guest: Leslie Landrigan, New England historian and author
Episode Date: November 25, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this holiday bonus episode, Mike Carruthers explores the myths, foods, and overlooked traditions surrounding Thanksgiving. Joined by Leslie Landrigan, author of Historic Thanksgiving Foods and the People who Cook Them, 1607–1955, the discussion uncovers the surprising realities of the first Thanksgiving, how the menu evolved, and why much of our holiday imagery doesn’t match the 1621 celebration. The episode also highlights the forgotten stories of the women who cooked that first feast, the invention of new traditions, and even a fun fact about "Jingle Bells."

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origin of the Presidential Turkey Pardon

• The tradition began with informal turkey gifts to presidents in the 1800s, especially with Lincoln, but the modern "pardon" dates only to 1989 with George H.W. Bush.
• Quote:
  • “The first president to officially pardon a Turkey was George H.W. Bush in 1989. … From that point, every president has kept that tradition alive.” (03:26)

2. What Was Eaten at the First Thanksgiving?

• The classic image of turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and pumpkin pie is almost entirely inaccurate.
  • Menu Reality: Birds (possibly turkey, but also many others), deer (provided by Native Americans), shellfish, corn-based dishes, maybe lobster.
  • Notable Quote:
    • “We know that they had four deer that the natives brought... and the men went out shooting birds... probably shellfish, probably corn. That's what we know for sure. Lobster, maybe.” (05:48) - Leslie Landrigan

3. Pumpkin: The Staple of Early New England

• Pumpkin was a dietary mainstay and the subject of America’s first folk song.
  • Quote:
    • “One of the things that they always ate, and they ate to excess... is pumpkin. Pumpkin was hugely important. ... The first American folk song was written in 1620, and it was about how they ate too much pumpkin.” (07:46, 08:30) - Leslie Landrigan
• Nickname: "Pumpkinheads" for New Englanders.

4. How Did Turkey Become the Thanksgiving Centerpiece?

• Wild turkeys were abundant but not celebrated as the main dish until the 19th century.
• Sarah Josepha Hale, influential editor, popularized turkey as the centerpiece and lobbied for Thanksgiving to become a national holiday.
  • Quote:
    • “She was an American influencer and she was the one who made turkey the centerpiece of the American meal.” (11:25) - Leslie Landrigan

5. Early Thanksgiving Menus

• Included:
  • Nassamp: Native corn porridge with nuts, berries, possibly sweetener.
  • Striped Bass: Common and sustaining fish.
  • Shellfish, Deer, Wildfowl
  • Lack of Desserts: Indian pudding (cornmeal, milk, sweetener) developed later.
  • No potatoes, stuffing, or pie.
• Potatoes:
  • Sweet potatoes were a known European luxury, not available in the colonies until well after 1621.
  • White potatoes arrived even later and were initially shunned.
  • Notable French connection with potatoes' popularity (14:35).

6. The Three Sisters and Vegetables

• Natives’ staple of squash (pumpkin), beans, and corn was vital for colonists' nutrition.
• Cranberries: Revered by natives, used for dye, medicine, and sweetener; some contemporary Wampanoag communities still celebrate Cranberry Day.
  • Quote:
    • "Oh, they would have had cranberries, definitely. The natives revered the cranberry." (19:04) - Leslie Landrigan

7. Vegetable History

• No familiar vegetables like celery or potatoes on the first Thanksgiving.
• Celery didn’t arrive until the American Revolution and became a restaurant staple item for its crispness in fall (19:52–20:38).

8. The Women Who Cooked the First Thanksgiving (20:57–23:13)

• Only four women—Mary Brewster, Susanna Winslow, Elizabeth Hopkins, Elizabeth Billington—cooked for as many as 140 people under dire conditions.
• Stories behind each, including family drama and connections to Shakespearean history.
  • Memorable Moment: Elizabeth Hopkins’s husband inspired a character in Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

9. Pilgrims and Native Americans: Cooperation, Not Just a Feast

• The gathering was more like a state dinner, with underlying motives of negotiation and alliance-building rather than a simple shared meal.
  • Quote:
    • “If you’re going to call [this] a Thanksgiving, then the pilgrims in 1621 were not the first. … The two groups came together… Basically, it was more of a state dinner than it was a Thanksgiving.” (06:37) - Leslie Landrigan
• These groups intermingled regularly—trading, teaching (e.g., fishing, growing corn), and even saving lives.

10. Thanksgiving as a National Holiday: A Later Invention

• The "Thanksgiving" we celebrate (thankfulness, family feasts) didn’t exist until the 19th century; prior commemorative meals were rare, scattered, and themed around specific blessings, not harvest.
  • Quote:
    • “It wasn’t really Thanksgiving until the 19th century. It was kind of forgotten. … Thanksgiving was something that the English celebrated in England.” (25:52) - Leslie Landrigan
• Abraham Lincoln officially made it a national holiday.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Pumpkin's Role:
  “People used to call New Englanders pumpkinheads. New England was the pumpkin dominion.” (07:46) – Leslie Landrigan
• On the Origin of turkey as Thanksgiving’s Star:
  “She was way more influential than Martha Stewart. … She was the one who made turkey the centerpiece.” (11:25) – Leslie Landrigan
• On Cooking for the First Thanksgiving:
  “Here are these four women who have to pluck all the birds... They have no running water. They've got to cook outside. It just would have been a nightmare.” (21:14) – Leslie Landrigan

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Presidential Turkey Pardon Origin: 03:00–04:30
• First Thanksgiving Foods: 05:36–10:01
• Why Pumpkin? 07:46–09:06
• Turkey as National Centerpiece: 10:01–11:47
• Early Thanksgiving Menu Rundown: 11:47–12:53
• Potato’s Delayed Arrival: 12:53–15:33
• Cranberries and New England Foods: 19:04–19:40
• Women of Thanksgiving: 20:57–23:13
• State Dinner vs. Modern Thanksgiving: 23:13–24:42, 25:52–27:12

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Fun Holiday Fact: "Jingle Bells"

• Written for Thanksgiving sleigh rides in Medford, MA, in 1857, only adopted as a Christmas song over time.
• “The tune was first performed by children at a Thanksgiving concert at their church… so the next time you hear Jingle Bells… you’re actually listening to a Thanksgiving song that accidentally became a Christmas classic.” (28:00)

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Conclusion

This episode debunks countless Thanksgiving myths, replacing them with flavorful facts. The story of Thanksgiving is one of adaptation, resilience, and evolving traditions—marked by collaboration, hardship, and reinvention. Whether you’re serving turkey or just enjoying pumpkin pie, knowing the real roots and forgotten contributors adds a richer “flavor” to the holiday.

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Guest Book Reference:
Historic Thanksgiving Foods and the People who Cook Them, 1607–1955 by Leslie Landrigan.

Transcript

[A]

Today on something you should know, our second holiday bonus episode. Every November, we picture the first Thanksgiving as this big feast with roast turkey, stuffing, potatoes, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie. But here's the thing, almost none of that was actually on the table in 1621. The real menu was very different and may have even included eel meat. There were no pies, no sweet potatoes, and probably no cranberry sauce. So what did they eat at the first Thanksgiving?

[B]

One of the things that they always ate and they ate to excess and they have eaten it since 1620 and they're still eating it, is pumpkin. Pumpkin was hugely important. New England was the pumpkin dominion and the first folk song was written in 1620 and it was about how they ate too much pumpkin all the time.

[A]

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[B]

Thanks, Mike. I'm happy to be on.

[A]

So it seems like there's always been this fascination about what they ate at the first Thanksgiving. I'm not sure why that is, but it. But is it a mystery? Is it a theory? Do we really know what they ate?

[B]

We know two things. We know that they had four deer, that the natives brought the 90 natives. And we know that the men went out shooting birds with the natives and the Englishmen. So birds, deer, probably shellfish, probably corn. That's what we know for sure. Lobster, maybe.

[A]

And do we know why that first Thanksgiving, like, how these people came together and did they call it Thanksgiving? And like, what's as briefly as you can, what's the quick story of why these people came together?

[B]

What's interesting to me, if you call the meeting of indigenous people and English colonists in, you know, the early 17th century to eat food in autumn, if you're going to call that a Thanksgiving, then the pilgrims in 1621 were not the first Thanksgiving. The first Thanksgiving would have been in 1607 in Phipsburg, Maine, where a failed colony was established for about a year. But the circumstances were very, very similar. The two groups came together. Basically, it was more of a state dinner than it was a Thanksgiving. They were negotiating alliances. They would trade with each other and. And they would defend each other against common enemies.

[A]

The food that they ate, which we'll get into very soon here, but is it the food that they always ate, or was this some real special kind of food?

[B]

It was the food they usually ate. They may have dressed it up a little bit, and it would have been plentiful because of the time of year, but it was pretty much what they ate. I was going to say one of the things that they. They always ate, and they ate to excess, and they have eaten it since 1620, and they're still eating it, is pumpkin. Pumpkin was hugely important. And you know how we call people in Wisconsin cheese heads? People used to call New Englanders pumpkinheads. New England was the pumpkin dominion. And the first folk song was written in. The first American folk song was written in 1620. And it was about how they ate too much pumpkin. All the.

[A]

And what was the magic of pumpkin? Just because there were so many. I mean, that wasn't something that came over from England. Right?

[B]

Actually, they did know of pumpkin in England, and pumpkin pie was really popular. The Spanish had brought it over, and then it kind of fell out of favor. But it grew. Well, it was more resistant to deer and insects and fungus and things like that. So I think it was just its hardiness and, you know, it kept for a while.

[A]

In addition to a pie. What do you make out of pumpkin?

[B]

They tended to stew it. They would do a lot with it, but mostly they'd chop it up and stew it and mix it up with other stuff. I don't know that it was terribly appetizing.

[A]

Well, if you ever eat pumpkin, because we feed our dog pumpkin on recommendations of the vet and it isn't much. I mean, without spicing it up, it doesn't really. No, it's pretty bland.

[B]

It's pretty nutritious, though.

[A]

Right? That's why the dog eats it.

[B]

Well, you know, the natives, they grew what was called the three sisters, the pumpkin or squash, beans and corn, which for some reason having to do with amino acids or carbohydrates or something, I don't know, makes for a very nutritious diet.

[A]

At the center of today's Thanksgiving dinner is typically a turkey. Was it their center of the table?

[B]

No, it wasn't for a long time. They may have had turkey at the first Thanksgiving. Turkeys are wild. Turkeys are really stupid birds. They roost in the same place the time. So, you know, if you want dinner, you just go get yourself a turkey. But in fact, they were so easy to kill that they were obliterated from New England probably by the Civil War. Turkey, it was a part of the meal and it was something they ate. But chicken pie was. Was the big thing for a long time. And it was a woman named Sarah Josepha Hale, who, Who was a widow with five kids and needed money. So she wrote a book in 1827. It was a novel. I can't think of the name of it. But she described a Thanksgiving dinner in New England, a classic New England Thanksgiving, which was really, at the time only celebrated in New England. And the book sold well. And she got a job as the editor of what became Godey's Lady's book, which was this tremendous influential magazine. It was way more influential than Martha Stewart. And she. She was an American influencer and she was the one who made turkey the centerpiece of the American meal. And she was also the one, she lobbied for a long time to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. And finally, Abraham Lincoln was the one who said, yeah, okay.

[A]

So can you run down without going into. You don't have to stop at any of them and go into any detail. We can do that later. But just like, what's the menu look like at these early Thanksgiving y kind of dinners? What's on the menu?

[B]

Well, for the pilgrims, it would have been something called nassamp, which was a native kind of a porridge made with corn, cornmeal and nuts, berries and maybe a sweetener. They probably would have had striped bass, which was a fish that was easy to catch and that was also sustaining them. Probably would have had shellfish. They would have had deer, probably, and I'm guessing a lot of different kinds of wildfowl.

[A]

They.

[B]

I don't know that they would have had dessert, but they did develop this thing called Indian pudding, which was cornmeal with milk and a sweetener.

[A]

What about potatoes? Stuffing and gravy?

[B]

Oh, potatoes. Well, in 1620, we're talking about that first Thanksgiving, that first alleged Thanksgiving. They would have known about potatoes, but the potato they would have known about was the sweet potato, which the Spanish had brought to Europe. And it was highly prized because it was believed to be an aphrodisiac, and it was a luxury item. So some of the Pilgrims, who were of the gentry, would have been familiar with the sweet potato. But the sweet potato didn't come to America, I think, until 1764. 4. The Irish Potato didn't come to the United States until 1718, when a bunch of. There were five shiploads of Scots Irish who came to Boston. And the Boston Puritans didn't want to have anything to do with them, so they sent them to the New Hampshire frontier. And in what is now Derry, New Hampshire, they planted the first potato, the first Irish potato. And it was viewed as a food for the poor, for pigs, and for the Irish, you just didn't eat the potato. And the French hated the white potato even more. They banned its harvesting, or they banned the planting of the potato because they thought that it caused leprosy. But then during the Seven years war, around 1755 or so, there was a French pharmacist who was captured by the Germans. And while he was imprisoned, they made him eat potatoes. So after he got released, he got really interested in nutrition, and he rehabilitated the potato. And the French came to embrace the noble spud, and they served Thomas Jefferson french fries in Paris when he was minister to France. And Thomas Jefferson liked the french fries, so he served them at the White House when he was president. And that's how the white potato became a popular menu item at Thanksgiving.

[A]

You said the sweet potato didn't come here until the 1700s, but I thought you said that it was at the first Thanksgiving, which would have been before then. So help me understand.

[B]

No, no, no. They would have known about the sweet potato, but they wouldn't have had them here. It was something, you know, it was like a really fancy food.

[A]

I'm speaking with Leslie Landrigan, who's been writing about New England history for years. She's author of Historic Thanksgiving Foods and the People who cook them. 1607-1955. Every year around the holidays, we take a ton of family photos, and my wife turns them into these beautiful scrapbooks. The only problem is, once the scrapbook is on the shelf, we hardly ever see those pictures anymore, which is why I love our aura frames with aura, those photos come to life, showing up automatically on the frames throughout the house. It's like reliving those great moments every day. Setup takes just minutes. You download the Aura app, connect to Wi Fi, and you can share unlimited free photos and videos right from your phone. And if you're giving an Aura frame as a gift, you can preload pictures on it before it ships or add a personal message. It's the easiest, most meaningful and personal gift you can give. And every frame comes with a premium gift box ready to wrap or give as is. You can't wrap togetherness, but you can frame it for a limited time. Visit auraframes.com and get $45 off Aura's best selling Carver mat frames named number one by Wirecutter by using promo code something at checkout. That's auraframes.com promo code something. This exclusive black Friday Cyber Monday deal is their best of the year, so order now before it ends and support this show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. We frequently talk here about AI and how to use it. And I've just started using something that you need to know about called Notion. Now. If you've ever felt like there just aren't enough hours in the day, you've got notes here, projects there, emails everywhere. You're going to love what Notion has built. It's called the Notion Agent, and it's like having another version of you that actually finishes your work. Here's how I use it. After I finish an interview or a meeting, my Notion Agent reads through the notes, pulls out the action items, and then puts them in the right pages inside Notion. It even tags teammates automatically, which means I can focus on creative work instead of chasing details. Notion brings all your notes, docs, and projects into one connected space that just works. It's seamless, flexible, powerful, and it's actually fun to use. With AI built right in, you spend less time switching between tools and more time creating great work. And now with Notion Agent, your AI doesn't just help with work, it finishes it. Try Notion now with notion [e-mail] something that's all lowercase letters notion.com something to try your new AI teammate notion agent today. And when you use our link, you're supporting our notion.com something. So Leslie, there are foods that I think of as New Englandy foods that are often associated with Thanksgiving. Were they and those would be cranberries, apples, things like that. Were those there or not?

[B]

Oh, they would have had cranberries, definitely. The natives revered the cranberry. In fact, there is a there are some Wampanoag people who live on Martha's Vineyard, and their Thanksgiving is the second, second Thursday, I think, in October, and it's Cranberry Day and the kids get out of school and they eat cranberries. It was very, very useful, was used as a dye, it was used as a sweetener, it had medicinal properties.

[A]

Were the early settlers here, the Pilgrims, were they big on vegetables? Meaning did they have, like, peas and celery and carrots and things like that?

[B]

They would have eaten the Three Sisters, the, the pumpkins, the beans and the squash. Celery is kind of an interesting vegetable because it didn't really come to America until the American Revolution, the 1770s.

[A]

And it was.

[B]

Was kind of a fancy food. But think about it. You're celebrating Thanksgiving in late fall and vegetables are mushy, but there's this nice, green, crisp vegetable. And for many years it was the most popular item on US restaurant menus next to coffee and tea.

[A]

So talk about the people, because you mentioned the one woman who was kind of the Martha Stewart of her, or bigger than Martha Stewart. But I imagine that there are other people in this story that kind of steer the menu a bit, or the legend of the menu. Yes.

[B]

Well, the people who stick in my mind are the first four women who cook Thanksgiving, because after that first winter, there were only four adult women left in Plymouth Colony. And there would have been some 48 others who survived and 90 Native Americans. So that's cooking for 140 people. Here are these four women who have to pluck all the birds that the men caught. They probably have to cut up the deer. They have no running water. They've got to cook outside. It just would have been a nightmare. I can't even imagine it. But I can tell you who they were. There was Mary Brewster, who was older, she was in her 50s, and she was the wife of William Brewster, the spiritual guide. There was Susanna Winslow, who was the wife of Edward Winslow, who was one of the leaders. And those two were saints, which means they were the Puritans who came for religious reasons. So the other two women were Elizabeth Hopkins and Elizabeth Billington. And the Billingtons were bad news. Her husband, John Billington, was hanged for murder. Her son was a troublemaker who got lost and nearly started a war between the Pilgrims and the natives. And she was whipped for slander. But the one who really interests me is Elizabeth Hopkins. Her husband was Stephen Hopkins, who was in a Shakespeare play. He had come over to North America one time previously as an indentured servant, and his ship got wrecked and they lived on Bermuda for nine months and rebuilt the ship and went to Jamestown. And Shakespeare heard the story and wrote the Tempest. And so Stephen Hopkins, who came back to North America after returning to England, he was Stefano in the Tempest. He was the power mad butler.

[A]

So you have this image that we got in school of, you know, the Native Americans and the Pilgrims coming together as some sort of like community dinner and that they're all getting together and sharing their food. Is that what this was? Was there a lot of, let me help you cook that, or here's how we do it here as Native Americans, or was there that kind of relationship?

[B]

I think there would have been. One thing I'm really unclear about is whether the native women came because, you know, they might have brought some nassamp or some cornbread, or there were servants and there were children. And so I think everybody would have been pressed into service. They'd been working together for over a year. You know, the. The Pilgrims had things that the Indians wanted. Guns, for example, or, you know, trade goods, pots.

[A]

And.

[B]

The natives had something that the Pilgrims wanted, which was fur. There was a huge, huge market for beaver fur in Europe. And the natives taught the Pilgrims how to fish. So I think it would have been a cooperative effort.

[A]

So the natives and the Pilgrims have this big meal together. But was this like a special occasion? They came together, had this meal, and then they went their separate ways, or did these people mingle together all the time?

[B]

No, they intermingled a lot. As a matter of fact, Edward Winslow, who was the husband of Susanna Winslow, who cooked that dinner, he saved the chief's life. At one point, Massasoit had some illness, and Edward Winslow came, and I think, honestly, I think he fed him something like chicken soup and did something to save his life. So, yes, and of course, Squanto, the native who breeded them, taught them how to grow corn. So they mingled a lot.

[A]

What else about this holiday or the first Thanksgiving anyway, or the early traditions of Thanksgiving do you find people still don't understand or maybe is a bit of a myth or anything like that?

[B]

It wasn't really Thanksgiving until the 19th century. It was kind of forgotten. And Thanksgiving was something that the English celebrated in England. And here it wasn't a harvest meal. A real Thanksgiving was getting the community together because you were thankful for something that could be rain after a drought or a military victory. So after the Battle of Saratoga in the Revolution, Sam Adams in Massachusetts declared a day of Thanksgiving. You could have Thanksgiving in April. You could have. Your town could have A Thanksgiving. Thomas Jefferson actually declared Thanksgiving when he was governor of Virginia, and it didn't really become a national holiday until Abraham Lincoln declared it.

[A]

But the idea of Thanksgiving, as you say, came later. So what did they view it as when they came together? They're coming together saying, hey, thanks for coming to our what I think it.

[B]

Would have been like a state dinner. You know, they didn't sign any treaties, but that would have been the point of it.

[A]

Well, it sounds like the Thanksgiving we have today that we celebrate in our homes with our family and friends is very different than those early Thanksgivings and frankly seems a lot tastier. But it is fun to hear you talk about, you know, what those real Thanksgiving meals were like. I've been speaking with Leslie Landrigan. She is author of a book called Historic Thanksgiving Foods and the People who cook them 1607-1955. And there's a link to her book at Amazon in the show notes. Leslie, thank you. Terrific.

[B]

Thanks so much, Mike.

[A]

Of course you know the song Jingle Bells. It is one of the most famous Christmas songs in ever written. But here's something you may not know. It wasn't written for Christmas at all. Back in 1857, a songwriter named James Lord Pierrepont composed Jingle Bells, but the original title was the One Horse Open Sleigh. And it wasn't about Santa or Christmas or even winter festivities. It was written for Thanksgiving. Pierpont was living in Medford, Massachusetts, a town famous at the time for its sleigh races. And during the snowy Thanksgiving season, young people would race their sleighs down Salem street, laughing, shouting and jingling bells to warn pedestrians to get out of the way. Pierpont wanted to capture that energy in a song. The tune was first performed by children at a Thanksgiving concert at their church, and it became so popular that people started singing it again a few weeks later at Christmas. Over time, it just stuck. So the next time you hear Jingle Bells playing during the holidays, remember you're actually listening to a Thanksgiving song that accidentally became a Christmas classic. And that is something you should know from everyone here at Something you should Know. I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and I appreciate you listening to this special bonus holiday episode of Something youg Should Know.