Bob Koure
1 min readNov 26, 2019

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It’s entirely possible that cranberries were part of that meal — as an ingredient in pemmican. Yes, pemmican was more of a travel food, but one of the native Americans might have had it along, possibly alongside venison, as venison is very dry but pemmican is mostly fat (the name comes from the word for grease). Meanwhile, the English were in the habit of ‘larding’ dry meats.

And I wonder if what we now call turkeys were grouped under ‘wild fowl’. I’d also expect ‘pumpkin’ to mean ‘winter squash’ as it does in England today

Also, corn may have made an appearance as popcorn.

Agreed that seafood and shellfish were almost certainly part of the meal — although there’s some evidence that the population boom in lobsters that led to them being found along shores came from the dip in the cod population (a lobster predator) caused by overfishing. There were seasonal European fishing fleets off of the East coast of the Americas, IMO but not enough to cause a population crash by 1621.

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Bob Koure
Bob Koure

Written by Bob Koure

Retired software architect, statistical analyst, hotel mgr, bike racer, distance swimmer. Photographer. Amateur historian. Avid reader. Home cook. Never-FBer

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