The Hidden Secret of Thanksgiving that is Actually Pretty Amazing

The organizing principle of the Thanksgiving feast isn't gratitude or religion or even autumn- it's the concept of the "New World".

If you’re a food person and a history person, you’ve read dozens of articles about Thanksgiving, and whether the feast is representative of a real meal Pilgrims ate with the Indians and all that. This is not one of those articles. In this Thanksgiving post, I’m going to break down the real story of why we eat these foods, and it’s way more interesting than Pilgrims.

Thanksgiving meal is actually organized around the principle of “the New World”. This is an idea that emerged in 1503 when explorer Amerigo Vespucci (appropriately) used the term Mundus Novus to describe the places he explored (and would eventually be named “the Americas” after him). He was using hyperbole- the phrase was intended to make the territories across the Atlantic seem strange and wondrous- but he had a point: the plants, animals, people, and foods of the Western hemisphere were totally different than the ones familiar to him. The “Old World” was the one Europeans were used to, and Old World foods were all from the giant land mass that comprises Europe, Asia, and Africa: wheat and rice, domesticated versions of wild cabbages, onions, cows and pigs. These foods traveled over trade routes throughout Eurasia and Africa, thousands of years of exchange among the cultures of the Eastern Hemisphere.

But two giant oceans separated Eurasia and Africa from the Americas. Most plants and animals- including, for much of history, humans- never crossed the oceans, which meant plants and animals evolved separately in both “worlds”. When the first, prehistoric people first migrated to the Americas from Asia, they brought no crops with them- they had to build a cuisine entirely from the native species they found here.

So, thousands of years later when Vespucci and others made their journeys, they discovered a “new” people eating foods they found strange and amazing. Today, we call those foods “New World foods” after Vespucci’s turn of phrase. And- unlike any other menu in the American repertoire- the Thanksgiving meal is a giant tribute to exactly these foods.

The reason is this: as the tradition of Thanksgiving gradually took form in the 18th and 19th centuries, the narrative of gratitude for a Brand-New American Land became central to the idea. Thanksgiving wasn’t just a prayer of thanks for a successful harvest, it became an expression of appreciation for America itself- at least in the minds of those planning civic events and public feasts. And if you’re going to make a feast of Thanksgiving for America, you better build it around truly American foods. And that’s just what Americans did.

Amazingly, all of the foods central to the Thanksgiving tradition are indigenous to the Americas. That might seem trivial, but it’s not as easy as it seems. Though Native Americans had complex, sophisticated agricultural systems, indigenous Americans domesticated only one or two animals for food, and had no dairy tradition. Many native diets were supplemented by wild plants and animals. That means no cheese, pork, beef, chicken, wheat, rice, or olive oil, the staples of Europe and the Mediterranean. A historical exchange of crops between the Old and New Worlds- called “the Columbian Exchange”- has meant that modern people eat a mixture of both Old and New World foods most everywhere on Earth- and we barely tell the difference any more.

But the New World foods are glorious- and the Thanksgiving meal is a celebration of them and only them. Here’s what I mean: I’ll run down the foods of a classic Thanksgiving meal of roast turkey, mashed potatoes, succotash or boiled corn, green bean casserole, cornbread stuffing, and pumpkin pie. And all of these foods- all of them- came from the Mundus Novus.

Huehxōlōtl, the Giant Monster Fowl of the Aztec

In what is now Central Mexico, the ancient Olmec people became familiar with an exceptionally large jungle bird with beautiful plumage and an ugly face. They domesticated the bird, using it for eggs, meat, and gorgeous feathers for ceremonial decoration. Later, the Aztec called the fowl huehxōlōtl, meaning “Giant Monster”, an appropriate name if you’ve ever encountered a turkey face-to-face. Indigenous people all over Mesoamerica used turkeys ceremonially- sacrificing and feasting on the birds as offerings of thanks for a bountiful harvest, wearing its feathers in beautiful headdresses, and making statues and carvings. The Aztec even had a horrifying god Chalchiuhtotolin, representing disease and plague, who took the form of a huge, horrifying turkey. Statues and other relics taking the form of the turkey are found all over Mexico, symbolizing the great importance of the bird to the culinary and religious landscape of these ancient civilizations.

A ceremonial vessel representing a huehxōlōtl, 7-10th century, Veracruz, Mexico. Photo: public domain.

European explorers encountering the Aztec huehxōlōtl brought it back to Europe, where it was confused with the peacock from India (in Spain it’s still called “pavo” from “peacock”). English speakers confused matters even further, thinking it came from Turkey (which was a generic name for Asia anyway). Regardless of what we call it, our feasting on Thanksgiving turkeys echoes the Aztec ritual sacrifice of the huehxōlōtl- Thanksgiving is about as close as we get to a harvest celebration. By the way, the Mexican word for turkey- guajolote- descends directly from huehxōlōtl.

Chuño, Mashed Potato of the Inca

If turkeys come from Mexico, potatoes come from that other great American empire, Peru. Ancient inhabitants of central Peru discovered and cultivated the tuber, which took the name papa, meaning, ummm, “tuber”. The starchy papa became the backbone of the indigenous diet in this part of South America, and it also took on religious significance- a number of potato-shaped vessels have been discovered by archaeologists, suggesting a ritual meaning of the potato. But most of all, potatoes were good eating, and could be preserved a long time by freeze-drying. The way the Inca did this was to make chuño, which is basically dried mashed potatoes. By smashing potatoes with the feet and exposing them to freezing nights followed by sun and air, you get a stable, long-lasting food source that can be rehydrated and cooked on demand.

Making chuño in the Andes. Photo: Potato News Today

Calorie-dense, delicious potatoes are fantastic mashed (by feet or not), and are basically everyone’s favorite Thanksgiving side dish. It ain’t chuño, but a stiff purée of potatoes is a welcome addition to any feast. Though mixing with butter and milk is a very European move, the dish of mashed spuds is about as ancient an American food as you can get.

Msickquatash, Boiled Corn of the Narragansett

Potatoes and turkeys are great, but by far the most important indigenous American crop is corn. Domesticated from a wild grass called teosinte in ancient Mexico, corn was bred to have big, starchy, yummy seeds growing in large podlike husks. The most common indigenous word for the grain came from the Taino word mahiz- corn is known by some variant of “maize” in most places- but many Native American languages have their own word for corn and the dishes made from it.

When I was a kid, corn appeared in two forms on the Thanksgiving table: cornbread stuffing (more on that later) and a dish called “succotash”. Succotash was basically a side of boiled corn kernels, lima beans, and butter. This actually isn’t so far from the original dish, as described by English settler Daniel Gookin in his 1674 book Account of the Indians of New England. He described the Indians’ diet as “generally boiled Indian corn or maize, mixed with kidney-beans, or sometimes without.” English-speaking settlers adopted the word “succotash” for this dish, probably from the Narragansett term msickwatash meaning “boiled corn”. Though the Native Americans Gookin was describing wouldn’t have had butter, many early succotash recipes specify bear fat, beaver tail, or other fatty meats in the dish. Over the years, salt pork, bacon, or lard became common sources of fat in New England succotash dishes, but today, most people just use butter. But if boiled corn or succotash is on your table this Thanksgiving, it’s because it was the real staple food of many of the original inhabitants of this country.

“An Aztec Woman Blowing on Corn Before Putting it in the Pot So It Will Not Fear The Fire”. Florentine Codex, late 16th century.

Exōtl, the New Bean

They grew legumes in the old world, and even called them “beans” sometimes. But they weren’t the beans that we know today. Basically everything we call “beans” these days is from the genus Phaseolus, the “common bean”, which was domesticated separately in two places: Mexico and Peru (there’s those two centers of origin again!) Everywhere in the Americas, indigenous people ate beans: dried beans stored well and made a nourishing soup when boiled; fresh, ripe “shell” beans could be used as a vegetable (like in succotash); and even immature, tender bean pods could be harvested and eaten. We call these immature bean pods “green beans”, “string beans” or “snap beans”. The green beans we eat today come from the Mexican-domesticated species, eaten by the Nahuatl-speaking Aztec. The Nahuatl root word for bean was “etl” or “otl”, but they had dozens of terms for various kinds of beans- and those beans eaten unripe in green, long pods were called exōtl (Mexicans still call them “ejote” today).

Moche jar illustrated with pictures of beans and mythical bean-shaped warriors, made 500-100 BC, Northern Peru

On our Thanksgiving table, we often eat green beans in a kind of casserole, made with cream of mushroom soup and crisp fried onions on top. (This dish has its own amazing backstory, which includes the test kitchen at the Campbell’s soup company and Queen Soraya of Iran. I’m not kidding about this) Cream wasn’t ever eaten in pre-Columbian America, but button mushrooms are one of the very few foods native to both Europe and America. We have native onion species too, so you could improvise a green bean casserole made with all New World foods if you focused on it. Or you could just open a can of cream of mushroom and fake it- I’m not judging.

Maize and the Joy of Stuffing

Given the importance of corn in the New World, it makes sense that two dishes on our menu are made of it. Besides fresh, boiled corn that we eat as a vegetable in succotash, fully ripened and dried corn can be made into a kind of flour. Native Americans made a huge variety of cakes, porridges, dumplings, soups, and beverages. Cakes made of ground corn took many shapes and were called many things by the Indians, but settlers gave these cakes their own names: johnnycakes, hoe cakes, hush puppies, corn pone, and, most popularly, cornbread. Wheat-flour bread was, of course, the European “staff of life”, and since maize/corn was the Native American basic foodstuff, “cornbread” became a sort of early fusion cuisine, a form familiar to settlers and indigenous alike. Especially in the Southeast, cornbread ended up being a beloved staple for everyone, used in a variety of ways, especially basic nutrition for the poor.

There was already a longstanding European practice (since the 1300s at least) of stretching expensive meat with inexpensive bread- mixing breadcrumbs with meat for meatballs or meatloaf, coating cutlets with breadcrumbs, and stuffing roasts with crumbled, stale bread to feed more mouths. Stuffing a roast turkey with cornbread in the New World was natural, since the English were already fond of stuffing chickens with wheat bread back home. Nowadays, American Thanksgiving cooks have made stuffing recipes into an art form, often calling them “dressing” and cooking alongside the roast rather than within it.

And Finally, (Pumpkin) Pie

This one is a little confusing, and it was in the old days too. One of the most ancient foods known is the bottle gourd. I know. Who eats bottle gourds? Well, in ancient times it was a really important food- for one thing young gourds make good vegetables, but old ones have another cool use- they can be dried and made into an effective container (that’s the “bottle” part). These gourds were cultivated so long ago they’re not even sure where they came from- but most people think they came from Africa. One old word for this gourd is the Spanish calabaza, which probably came from an Arabic word, which became our word “calabash”. But calabashes aren’t pumpkins. In the New World, indigenous people (again, a looong time ago) domesticated a different but similar vine, which we know know as the squash family. This happened in Southern Mexico (there’s that center of origin again!). ANYWAY, when Spanish explorers from Europe arrived and saw Indigenous Americans eating squashes, they thought they were eating calabashes. The English thought they were eating melons, and so they called them pompion, from an old word for “large melon”. So it was a big confusion. But regardless of the confusion, everyone realized that the biggest of the big New World squashes was good eating- especially when cooked a long time and made into a kind of pudding. This was the beginning of our pumpkin pie- a dessert made from the biggest giant squash there is.

If you want to make an all-indigenous pumpkin pie you can do it, but you’d have to use maple syrup instead of sugar, and you’d have to skip the crust (or make a cornbread one- wheat flour is Old World, remember?) You could use allspice instead of nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger and clove- it’s a great New World spice that is indigenous to the Caribbean.

That’s it! Every single food in the most traditional Thanksgiving menu is from the New World and exclusively so. Name me one other menu like that. It’s the hidden secret within Thanksgiving that is actually really really cool.