These Thanksgiving Recipe Ideas Will Get the Whole Family Excited (2024)

FAQs

What are 3 items that were most likely on the first thanksgiving menu but probably aren t on most menus today? ›

Although turkeys were indigenous, there's no record of a big, roasted bird at the feast. The Wampanoag brought deer and there would have been lots of local seafood (mussels, lobster, bass) plus the fruits of the first pilgrim harvest, including pumpkin. No mashed potatoes, though.

Southern-cuisine expert and cookbook author Diana Rattray has created more than 5,000 recipes and articles in her 20 years as a food writer. The classic Thanksgiving dinner includes old-time favorites that never change: turkey, gravy, stuffing, potatoes, veggies, and pie.

There are only two surviving documents that reference the original Thanksgiving harvest meal. They describe a feast of freshly killed deer, assorted wildfowl, a bounty of cod and bass, and flint, a native variety of corn harvested by the Native Americans, which was eaten as corn bread and porridge.

Cornish game hen, goose, duck, ham, beef, salmon, and mushroom recipes make worthy centerpieces for holiday meals.

Pumpkin Pie

Pumpkin pie wasn't served for dessert at the first Thanksgiving—nor was any pie, for that matter. The Pilgrims probably didn't have access to many of the things needed to make pie crust, including butter, flour, and ovens. But that doesn't mean pumpkin was left out of the meal entirely.

Turkey. Some would say a turkey is the most important food item at the table. A turkey is the center of the traditional Thanksgiving dinner. In fact, 88 percent of Americans eat Turkey on Thanksgiving, with 46 million Turkeys eaten on the holiday.

Turkey (and Gravy)

Let's start with the star of the show: the turkey. There are many different ways to prepare a Thanksgiving turkey, from the oven to the fryer to the smoker. Then you've got brines, rubs, and herbs. But our favorite way is to start with the best bird we can find, and simply roast it with some herbs.

America's different regions can favor different local cuisines, and Thanksgiving dinner provides no exception. While turkey is the top selection in every region, side-dish challenger mashed potatoes are tied for first place in the Midwest (both winning 85% of matchups) and West (both winning 79%).

You will likely be eating roast turkey, barbecued turkey, deep fried turkey, glazed country ham, collard greens, macaroni and cheese, green beans, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes mashed and covered with marshmallows, corn, cornbread, yeast/potato rolls, black eyed peas, rice, gravy, potato salad, cranberry sauce from ...

What do Americans eat for Thanksgiving? ›

THE FEAST. Traditional foods are a large part of Thanksgiving celebrations. Many families include the entire family in the food preparation. Traditional foods include turkey, stuffing, gravy, sweet potatoes, cornbread, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce.

On October 3, President George Washington issued a proclamation naming Thursday, November 26, 1789, as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, and that year Thanksgiving was celebrated for the first time under the new Constitution.

Cooking and Food

During the Mayflower's voyage, the Pilgrims' main diet would have consisted primarily of a cracker-like biscuit ("hard tack"), salt pork, dried meats including cow tongue, various pickled foods, oatmeal and other cereal grains, and fish. The primary beverage for everyone, including children, was beer.

President Abraham Lincoln had declared Thanksgiving a national holiday on the last Thursday in November in 1863 and tradition dictated that it be celebrated on the last Thursday of that month.

The first Thanksgiving banquet consisted of foods like venison, bean stew and hard biscuits. And while corn and pumpkin had their place on the table, they hardly resembled the cornbread stuffing and pumpkin pie we feast on today.

So while our Thanksgiving dinner table has a big ol' turkey plated in the center, the first Thanksgiving table was likely filled with ducks, geese, eels, lobster, and venison. Maybe there was a turkey, but it was either missing or too dry for anyone to literally write home about it.

Potatoes—white or sweet—would not have been featured on the 1621 table, and neither would sweet corn. Bread-based stuffing was also not made, though the Pilgrims may have used herbs or nuts to stuff birds.