(English crops such as turnips, cabbage, parsnips, onions, carrots, parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme might have also been on hand.) And for the starring dishes, there were undoubtedly native birds and game as well as the Wampanoag gift of five deer.

FACT: The pilgrims didn’t use forks; they ate with spoons, knives, and their fingers, opens a new window. FACT: 88 percent of Americans have turkey on Thanksgiving.

Both the Pilgrims and members of the Wampanoag tribe ate pumpkins and other squashes indigenous to New England—possibly even during the harvest festival—but the fledgling colony lacked the butter and wheat flour necessary for making pie crust.

Of the three dining utensils, the fork was not present during the very first Thanksgiving feast. The pilgrims used knives, spoons – and their fingers! The pilgrims did not bring forks with them.

What’s the Wampanoag version of what happened? Yeah, it was made up. It was Abraham Lincoln who used the theme of Pilgrims and Indians eating happily together. He was trying to calm things down during the Civil War when people were divided.

The pilgrims did not use forks. Instead the pilgrims ate with spoons, knives, and their fingers.

9. What animals did the Pilgrims bring on Mayflower in 1620? Pilgrim accounts mention that two dogs (a spaniel and a mastiff) were brought on the 1620 Mayflower voyage. A reference in a 1623 letter leads Museum historians to believe that there were probably goats, pigs and chickens on Mayflower as well.

Small birds were often spit-roasted, while larger birds were boiled. It is possible that the birds were stuffed, though probably not with bread. (Bread, made from maize not wheat, was likely a part of the meal, but exactly how it was made is unknown.) The Pilgrims instead stuffed birds with chunks of onion and herbs.

The English ate with knives, spoons, and fingers. Knives were used both to cut food and to convey “gobbets” or morsels to the mouth. Why didn’t the Pilgrims have forks to eat with? According to colonial inventories, they did not have any eating forks.

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As was the custom in England, the Pilgrims celebrated their harvest with a festival. The 50 remaining colonists and roughly 90 Wampanoag tribesmen attended the “First Thanksgiving.”

The Pilgrims tried to extend the life of their foods through preservation. Salting, the most common method of preservation, worked well for pork (meat from pigs) and fish. This method was sometimes combined with smoking for meats. Vinegar pickles and sugar were also occasionally used to preserve foods.

The passengers brought dried meat and fish, grains and flour, dried fruit, cheese, hard biscuits, and other foods with them. They had to eat the food they brought until they could plant and harvest a garden. But, they caught and ate fish and wild game once they landed in North America.

During the Mayflower’s voyage, the Pilgrims’ main diet would have consisted primarily of a cracker-like biscuit (“hard tack”), salt pork, dried meats including cow tongue, various pickled foods, oatmeal and other cereal grains, and fish. The primary beverage for everyone, including children, was beer.

Smoking. One of the most popular ways for Native Americans to keep their meat for longer was by smoking it. While salting was generally known as a good preservative option, salt was usually hard to come by which meant that smoking was one of the leading ways to preserve fish, bison and other meats.

Brine was saltwater that was traditionally “strong enough to float an egg.” Preserved in this way, homesteaders could keep meats for weeks and months at a time. However, like the other staple of pioneer diet, salt pork, “salted down” meat had to be laboriously rinsed, scrubbed, and soaked before consumption.

Smoking Meat and Fish Smoking was another fairly common way to preserve meat, especially fish and pork. Meat would be cut into relatively thin, lean strips, immersed briefly in a salt solution and hung over a fire to absorb the smoke flavoring as it dried — slowly.

The Ojibwe realized that cattail roots made great food. They dug them up, boiled them, and ate them like po- tatoes. They also dug wild onions and picked grapes, butternuts, hazelnuts, and many kinds of berries. Since they didn’t have freezers or re- frigerators, they dried and stored most of their foods.

How did the Ojibwe people give back to the natural world whenever they harvested plants or hunted animals? They offerer gifts of food and tobacco.

The Ojibwe have always hunted and fished, made maple sugar and syrup, and harvested wild rice. Prior to the 20th century, the Ojibwe lived in wigwams and travelled the waterways of the region in birch bark canoes.

For the Ojibwa, tea was the favored drink, served any time there was a fire available to heat water. Ojibwa tea was made from leaves and roots that were often harvested at the very moment that the notion of a ‘nice cuppa tea’ flitted into consciousness.

Fish were plentiful, along with berries, nuts, roots, seeds and the most important crop: wild rice. Their diet was low-carb and consisted of lots of protein and seasonal fruits, plant stocks and roots. The Ojibwa in the south had all of the foods above, but the climate and terrain made it suitable for agriculture.

The Ojibwe are known for their birch bark canoes, birch bark scrolls, mining and trade in copper, as well as their cultivation of wild rice and maple syrup. They signed treaties with settler leaders, and many European settlers inhabited the Ojibwe ancestral lands.

The Chippewa spoke a form of the Algonquin language. Famous Battles/Wars: For the most part, the Ojibwe were a peaceful nation. They were friendly with the white men, and even served as middlemen in trading between French fur traders and the Sioux. The Sioux were by far their biggest enemy.

There are seven original clans: Crane, Loon, Bear, Fish, Marten, Deer and Bird.

Games: The Ojibwa used games to teach their children many things, including good behavior, safe behavior, and other important manners and skills. These games were creative and fun, and are still enjoyed today. They include Butterfly Hide and Seek, and Moccasin Pebble.

There is no difference. All these different spellings refer to the same people. In the United States more people use ‘Chippewa,’ and in Canada more people use ‘Ojibway,’ but all four of these spellings are common.

The Ojibwe call themselves “Anishinaabeg,” which means the “True People” or the “Original People.” Other Indians and Europeans called them “Ojibwe” or “Chippewa,” which meant “puckered up,” probably because the Ojibwe traditionally wore moccasins with a puckered seam across the top.

Ojibwa, also spelled Ojibwe or Ojibway, also called Chippewa, self-name Anishinaabe, Algonquian-speaking North American Indian tribe who lived in what are now Ontario and Manitoba, Can., and Minnesota and North Dakota, U.S., from Lake Huron westward onto the Plains.