Indigenous influences on Thanksgiving

Thus, the term humble pie. The Europeans had it rough.

Thanksgiving is upon us and it’s time once again to thank the original inhabitants of Turtle Island for the land and the food that is grown on it.

The first Thanksgiving recalls the prosaic scene with Indians and pilgrims sitting down to a meal with the pilgrims handing out the food. Whether it really happened or not is a matter of American folklore, but most likely it was the local Wampanoag people who fed the pilgrims. The pilgrims were religious zealots who had to rely on the kindness of others to survive. For the Wampanoag this was their land that had fed them for generations.

The early exploration of the Americas was done by greedy people looking for gold, jewels, the Fountain of Youth and other fabled treasures. They tramped across the new land missing the fact that the good earth was rich with domesticated gardens tended by the Indigenous people.

The Jesuit missionaries got lost in Mohawk cornfields, complaining that it was worse than the forest.

In addition to their domesticated corn, the Mohawks practised companion planting that assisted each plant and eradicated weeds and other undergrowth. The three sisters of corn, beans and squash were planted together and thrived long before herbicides.

To survive in the long trails of the fur trade, the Indigenous people provided the fur traders with pemmican, which consisted of meat such as deer, moose or buffalo mixed with fat and berries. Pemmican was a delicious food that was healthy and easy to carry and didn’t spoil.

To the north the Hudson Bay Company introduced bannock, which was a staple of the Scottish fur traders. The problem with the fur trade was that the people were nomadic and couldn’t be tied down to a lot of stuff. An iron pot and a knife were one-time purchases, but a bag of flour would have to be purchased repeatedly. As a result, flour was one of the leading trade goods and flour packing across portages was an important skill.

As the buffalo hunters moved west and later the early settlers, our people filled a valuable role as the sellers of pemmican and dried meat.

To the south in Mesoamerica and South America lay a vast treasure trove of fruits and vegetables that would change the diet of Europe.

Prior to the conquest of the Americas, vegetables in Europe consisted of cabbage, carrots, onions and turnips. Henry VIII had a prodigious appetite and his feasts included wild boar, peacocks, swans and black pudding, a sausage made from congealed blood. Vegetables were considered food for the lower classes.

After the lord of the manor killed a deer he would give the innards to the servants, which they would make into a pie. Thus, the term humble pie. The Europeans had it rough.

Meanwhile in the Americas, life was good. In addition to corn and squash, potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, avocados and peanuts were some of the food cultivated by the original people. The tomato was late to catch on because while it was cultivated by the Maya it was considered poisonous by the Spanish.

Fruits cultivated in the Americas included pineapple, blueberries, cranberries and papaya. Other foods such as chocolate and vanilla also came from the Americas.

I recall making a trip to Cuzco in Peru and visiting the market. The stalls were filled with different kinds of corn and potatoes of different sizes and colours. The valleys contained fields with corn at lower altitudes and potatoes higher up.

I also saw granaries on the mountainsides where potatoes and other foods were stored. The local Quechua people developed a method of freeze-drying potatoes to preserve them.

They also had developed chicha, which is an alcoholic beer based on fermented corn. I tried some in Peru and it’s an acquired taste. It is a sour mash that takes a little getting used to.

So please enjoy your Thanksgiving dinner and rejoice in the fact that so many good foods came from the Americas. Just think: if the Americas remained isolated, you would be eating a swan instead of a turkey.