Article Contributed on: 11/22/2009 1:44:33 AM
Family Thanksgiving Pumpkin History and Pumpkin Bars
On many tables this Thanksgiving will be pumpkin pie; a favorite Thanksgiving dessert. The only pies the pilgrims ate were meat pies.
The New England settlers said that corn, beans, and pumpkins or squash were the Indian Three Sisters, for these three were the Indians' main crops. All three were seeds the Pilgrims dug up at Cape Cod and planted that first spring in the New World.
Recorded history does not specifically state that the Pilgrims ate pumpkin in any for at their first Thanksgiving. In 1623, we can find records of old poems in which, if you read with care, you can see that they were eating more pumpkin than they wanted:
Instead of pottage and puddings and
Custard and pies,
Our pumpkins and parsnips are
Common supplies:
We have pumpkin at morning and
Pumpkin at noon,
If it were not for pumpkin, we should
Be soon undoon
-Chambers, Robert, ed. Book of Days. Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1967 (Repr. Of 1886 ed.).
Squanto taught the pilgrims to plant pumpkin seeds in the spaces between the corn hills. The spreading pumpkin vines kept the weeds down and saved the people work.
Contaminated water was a concern for all at that time of history. Because beer was processed it didn't have germs; so pilgrims drank beer with their meals. English beer was made from barley, the pilgrims didn't have barley. However, they had pumpkins; they made their beer out of pumpkins, parsnips and walnut tree chips.
After apple trees were brought from England, cider replaced this beer as the Pilgrims' favorite beverage.
I am not sure about making beer out of pumpkins but the slide show is a pumpkin bar that is quick, easy and yummy.
R.R.Cratty
More Thanksgiving history for families:
Cranberry Thanksgiving & Cranberry Biscotti
The Pilgrims and Mini Quiche Slide Show
Sources:
Hall, Elvajean. Pilgrim Stories. (A revision of the Margaret Pumphrey Stories. ) Chicago: Rand McNally, 1964
Frazer, James G. The Golden bough. New York: St. Martin's Press, Inc., 1914
-Chambers, Robert, ed. Book of Days. Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1967 (Repr. Of 1886 ed.).
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