How History Has Shaped What Food You Put On Your Thanksgiving Table

Thanksgiving celebrations have taken place in America in some form or another since the 1500s. But some see the 1621 Thanksgiving feast at the Plymouth Plantation as the inspiration for our modern-day equivalent. And the then-governor of the Plymouth colony, William Bradford, noted that they had "a great store of wild turkeys" around the time of the event. So, in this sense, eating turkey is a historically accurate way to celebrate Thanksgiving!

Sarah Josepha Hale was the editor of Godey’s Ladies Book — and she used her power wisely. She sent "impassioned letters" to President Millard Fillmore, President Franklin Pierce, President James C. Buchanon, and President Abraham Lincoln imploring them to make Thanksgiving a thing. Hale also pushed recipes for dishes that would later become Thanksgiving staples. So when her campaigning finally saw dividends, her recipes for mashed potatoes shot to the top of the list of things we wanted on our Thanksgiving tables.

The Pilgrims didn't open cans of Ocean Spray cranberries to go with their meals. Yet cranberry sauce does have a uniquely American origin. "The Algonquin, Chippewa, and Cree, among others, gathered wild cranberries where they could find them," reported National Geographic. "Cranberries were used for everything from cooking to dyes for textiles to medicines." The British brought over the ability to sweeten the berries in the 1600s. Then, during the Civil War, General Ulysses S. Grant asked that all his soldiers be provided with cranberries on Thanksgiving. They've stuck around ever since.

Sweet potatoes have been a crop in America for hundreds of years — and recipes for them have popped up since 1796. But candied yams — those marshmallow-topped sweet spuds — are one of the most famous Thanksgiving dishes, too. Though it wasn’t necessarily meant to be that way! In 1917 the marketing team for Angelus Marshmallows devised the dish to help sell more 'mallows!

According to Eating in America: A History, an early Native American recipe for pumpkin pie looked like this: "Both squash and pumpkin were baked, usually by being placed whole in the ashes or embers of a dying fire and they were moistened afterwards with some form of animal fat, or maple syrup, or honey." Techniques understandably changed over the centuries, though, and by the time Honest Abe made Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863, pumpkin pie was firmly on the menu.

Dorcas Reilly was part of the Home Economics department in the Campbell Soup Company when she devised its famous Green Bean Casserole in 1955. Reilly later explained that the reasoning behind this dish was "to create a quick and easy recipe around two things most Americans always had on hand in the 1950s: green beans and Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup."

Some people may have heard that Thomas Jefferson was the inventor of macaroni and cheese — but they are mistaken. It was actually Jefferson's enslaved chef James Hemings. Hemings was trained in French cuisine when Jefferson took him to France in the late 1700s. And after the pair returned to Virginia, Hemings helped popularize French-inspired food such as creme brulee and mac and cheese.

Dating back at least five centuries — if not seven centuries — corn was a staple in the diet of the Wampanoag people. And it's likely that the Wampanoag taught the Pilgrims how to grow it for that famous feast in 1621. Kathleen Wall, a culinarian at the Plimoth Plantation living history museum, told the Smithsonian Magazine that corn probably appeared "in grain form for bread or for porridge" on the table.

Sauerkraut is finely cut cabbage that has been fermented to perfection. It’s common in various pockets of America, but especially in Mid-Atlantic cultural hubs such as Baltimore. After all, when Thanksgiving became an official holiday in 1863, something like 25 percent of Baltimore came from German stock. Sauerkraut was, therefore, always going to be a part of their dinner table.

People have been serving roasted, stuffed animals since the Roman Empire. But there’s no hard evidence that confirms or denies whether the Pilgrims used stuffing in their feasts. What we do know is that Stove Top Stuffing — of which 60 million boxes are sold for Thanksgiving each year — was created by Ruth Siems and first put out by General Foods in 1973.

It’s not likely that gravy was served at the earliest Thanksgiving celebrations. Even though the sauce was mentioned in a cookbook from the 14th century, gravy didn't really catch on — as what we currently think of as gravy, anyway — for at least another 300 years. Our gravy has its origins in French cuisine, and it gained popularity in America in the 1800s. The packet stuff didn't become a thing until 1931, either!

Wine obviously dates back thousands of years — yet culinarian Kathleen Wall doesn't think the Pilgrims drank wine or even beer on that day in 1621. “If there was beer, there were only a couple of gallons for 150 people for three days,” she told Smithsonian Magazine. They probably just drank water, then. Or some think it's possible cider was on the menu around this time.

American Ashkenazi Jews brought kugel to the dinner table. It’s a baked pudding most commonly made from egg noodles. The food itself dates back much further than the arrival of the official Thanksgiving holiday — but it has long been a dish served during celebrations. Traditionally served on Shabbat, it soon became a Thanksgiving mainstay in Jewish households across America.

Two more Jewish dishes that made their way to Thanksgiving tables are latkes and sufganiyah. You probably know latkes as the famously delicious potato pancakes, but the word sufganiyah is possibly not as well known. They are scrumptious round jelly donuts, though. Both of these treats were traditionally served on Hanukkah, but they have been hitting Thanksgiving menus more recently, too.

The list of ethnic additions to the standard Thanksgiving meal is virtually endless, but let’s hone in on Mexican Americans for a second. They have added their twist to turkey dinners, serving it with a hefty dose of mole sauce and lots of corn. "Thanksgiving is American, but the Latin influence is everywhere on the table," chef Manuel Iguina told NBC in 2018. But the more food on the table, the more family members who come to dinner. And that can be a stressful situation.

Part of the stress of attending a family gathering is worrying about what to do about other people's controversial opinions. And a way of avoiding another pitfall conversation with your least favorite "uncle" is to, well, not talk to people at all. Instead, you could just play a game! You should probably go for something inoffensive that doesn't involve drinking or personal questions. How about Charades or Pictionary?

Thanksgiving is about a lot of different things — and one that people like to talk about a lot is food. Is the turkey cooked right? Are we having yams or sweet potatoes? Who’s making the pumpkin pie? And did you know that Americans eat anywhere from 3,000 to 4,500 calories on Thanksgiving, according to the Calorie Control Council? But all of this diet talk can make eating somewhat less fun — and even anxiety-inducing for some. To avoid this, remind yourself and others that it's okay to eat a little more or less than usual. It is just one day out of the year, after all.

The prospect of staving off Thanksgiving stress by compiling lists of neutral conversation topics, researching your guests, setting boundaries, and giving yourself “me-time” could actually be making you feel the anxiety you’re trying to avoid. In which case, why not just do something different? Have dinner with friends, or volunteer at a shelter, or go on a solo vacation. Start your own holiday tradition!

Remember, there’s no reason for you to go visit your family for Thanksgiving if that’s not what you want to do. The decision to stay away might make your mom angry — but that doesn’t mean you should be sad, too. “It’s a radical thought that someone else could be upset and you can be as happy as you were before they got upset,” psychologist Dr. Lindsay Gibson told British newspaper The Guardian in 2021.

“The healthy and loving people in your family system can and should respect your boundaries,” clinical psychologist Dr. Ramani Durvasula informed The Guardian. And if you think some members of your family will react badly to your choice to not go home for Thanksgiving, ask a trusted friend or loved one to be your screener. They can protect you from any toxic responses and leave you to enjoy the day as it suits you best.

The key to avoiding unwanted topics of conversation is to arrive home with a bunch of vanilla questions designed to spark neutral discussions. An obvious one, for example, is prompting people to talk about their favorite Thanksgiving dishes. Or maybe what people have been watching on TV lately. And if all else fails, family therapist Kristen Harrington simply told website Refinery 29, “Ask them about themselves. Then they may forget to be nasty.”

Many of us will still choose to spend the holidays with our families, of course. But if you know that arguments are likely to happen, you should try your best to remember that it’s okay for you to have your own thoughts and opinions. Dr. Gibson recommended telling yourself, “This person is not more important than me. I am just as important as they are.”

You can’t predict when someone is going to say something with which you don’t agree — or who is going to say it. But you can try to control the way you respond to these comments. Bare in mind that an argument over the Thanksgiving dinner table is very unlikely to make anybody change their minds about, say, politics or vaccines. So if you just want to get through Thanksgiving without a fight, maybe don’t respond to triggering remarks for the time being. Save it for a more appropriate arena.

You know the members of your family almost as well as you know yourself — and you can use this knowledge to your advantage. So before you even get home, figure out who is likely to make you lose your temper and what they are likely to say. That way, you can avoid talking about certain parts of your life with these problematic family members.

"Do whatever you can to step out of that normal cycle you get stuck in when you go home," family therapist Moraya Seeger DeGeare advised Refinery 29. So even though it can be tempting to be with your loved ones 24/7, it could be better for your mental wellbeing to schedule some alone time. Go for a walk, go get some coffee, or even just enjoy an indulgent soak in the tub. Your body and mind will thank you later.

We understand, of course, if comments about important topics do eventually descend into shouting arguments. A holiday gathering will often find family members falling into their childhood roles, after all. But if this does happen, despite all your best intentions, it’s important not to beat yourself up about it. Everybody has had a rough couple of years — and adding guilt into the equation is not going to help anyone.

Before you agree to attend a Thanksgiving or holiday gathering, it could be a good idea to figure out who else is going to be there. Is this an extended family party, or is it limited to immediate family only? And once you know that, you can decide whether a larger gathering is really what you want from your Thanksgiving. A smaller dinner could prove less stressful and less likely to provoke arguments.

Dr. Nicole Washington — a therapist — wrote in Newsweek magazine in 2020 that many of her patients have “implemented a ‘no political talk’ rule” at Thanksgiving. You can even get ahead of the game by messaging family members about this rule before the big day. That way, if things seem like they’re going to stray into unwanted territory, you can refer them all back to this conversational barrier and move back onto safer ground.

You might belong to a family that is destined to have an argument during a holiday dinner. In this case, you can still try to take some control of these tricky conversations. For example, you could get everybody to agree on the shape that debates should take. Obvious rules should include no insults and no swearing. But you could also insist on people taking turns to speak, or carefully considering their responses before they talk.

You don’t need to bend over backwards to make sure everybody else is happy during the holidays. You should also make some room for yourself. At some point during Thanksgiving, then, go ahead and treat yourself. It could be making yourself a favorite breakfast or buying a longed-for gift — it doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, you’ll hopefully find that this tiny piece of self-care can raise your spirits infinitely.

If you're worried that things might go sideways at your own Thanksgiving, you could try to get out of your own head by doing something special for someone else. You could call that person to whom you haven’t spoken for months. You could offer baked goods to a neighbor. It needn't be a big gesture or a life-changing gift — even the smallest note could help someone out and do yourself a good turn, too.

When Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving an official holiday in 1863 he declared that his “fellow citizens” should use the day to give “praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.” Today, of course, we appreciate that not every American has the same relationship with religion — but it’s still worth considering Honest Abe’s words on Thanksgiving. So if you find yourself overwhelmed on the day, take a moment to reflect and be thankful for everything going right in your life. It may help to reset your mind.

Self-care can also mean reminding yourself that you don’t have to be happy on the holidays. There could be pressure from family members or even society to make these events the best ever, but it’s simply not true for everyone. If you’re grieving for a lost loved one or you’re sad you can’t be at home or if you’ve had a tough year, it’s okay to be upset. Don’t make things worse by forcing yourself to feel differently.

Use Facebook to your advantage this holiday season. If you think your guests for your holiday gathering this year could be problematic, check out their Facebook feeds ahead of the main event. Their activities on social media will give you big clues about what has been happening in their lives as well as what their interests are. You can then use this information to ask big questions about their years — while avoiding any potentially thorny topics.

If all else fails, there’s always Adele. Remember that Saturday Night Live sketch from 2015 where a bickering family is only brought together via the soaring melody of “Hello” by Adele? This year, that could be you and yours! The singer-songwriter has released another album since then, too, so there’s plenty of music to catch up on — and sing along to together.