Forest Fridays: I brought the green bean casserole
- by Guest Contributor
- November 29, 2024
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By John Schwartzer
The first Thanksgiving was held near Plymouth, Massachusetts, and not the Pennsylvania Wilds. However, many of the things eaten during that first Thanksgiving meal would have also likely been found in our rural section of Pennsylvania… and would seem very different from what Thanksgiving looks like nowadays.
Early American history provides slim pickings of what was on the menu of the first Thanksgiving in 1621. First person sources mention only “venison, maize (corn), and fowl.” More than likely, fowl meant swans, geese, or ducks. That’s it.
Image: Thanksgiving at Plymouth. 1925, Public Domain, Jennie_Augusta_Brownscombe
Turkeys were noted as plentiful that year, but not specifically on the menu. Given the scant records, we don’t know what they ate, but beans might have made an appearance. Beans were a storable staple of indigenous groups in the region. The colonists would be familiar with beans; Europe had fava beans (Vicia faba), a vetch species also known as horse beans or broad beans.
There were five species of true beans (Phaseolus spp.) domesticated in North America. Of these, only two true beans were known to be grown or eaten east of the Great Plains at the time of colonization. The most commonly eaten beans today, pinto, green, navy, kidney, and black beans, were all selected from the common bean, Phaseolus vulgaris. The common bean arrived from Central America not long before Europeans dropped anchor via the Mayflower.
Image: Fava beans. Bodhi Peace. CC SA 4.0 Wikipedia Commons.
Archeologists speculate the common bean appeared in the Eastern U.S. around the 13th-14th century. This is based on the very few prehistoric beans that have been found. Bean tissue doesn’t preserve well and persists best when carbonized in a fire around a hearth. Thirteen charred beans, discovered in various archeologic sites in the Southeast, were carbon dated. Incidentally, Bush’s Best bean company paid for dating of these beans.
Image: Charred beans (on right) found in excavations in Tennesee. TN.gov.
Common beans were possibly found on the Thanksgiving table, but thicket beans (Phaseolus polystachios), also known as wild kidney beans, are native to southern New England. These brown-black, lentil sized beans grow from Connecticut to Florida on twining vines eight to 30 feet long. As their name implies, they grow in open thickets and woods edges. The seeds are explosively dehiscent, meaning they launch themselves when ready.
Unlike the common bean, the root systems of thicket beans are perennial to USDA Zone 5, but the vines are annual. So, one successful bean sprout can create high-quality protein for 10-15 years. Thicket beans may have been cultivated pre-European contact and researchers suspect the shattering property may have been selected against to improve harvesting. Thicket beans have recently gained popularity in the permaculture movement for their nitrogen fixing and perennial habits. Thicket bean genetics may hold the key for crop breeding programs because they resist common diseases of cultivated beans.
Image: Thicket beans. Sam Gutekanst. CC-by-NC, iNaturalist.org.
Natural populations of thicket beans across their range are declining due to habitat loss, deer browsing, and bean-eating weevils. Pennsylvania has several historic and extant populations of thicket beans, and they are under consideration for state listing. Let’s keep the beans on the menu!
Other standard Thanksgiving table fare that did NOT make an appearance in 1621 Plymouth:
Mashed potatoes (Solanum tuberosum) were brought first to Virginia from Peru by way of Bermuda in 1621.
Candied sweet potatoes (or yams to some)( Ipomoea batatas), were first brought to northeastern America in 1648 from southern Mexico by way of Spain.
More Interesting Reading:
- What Was on the Menu at the First Thanksgiving? | Smithsonian
- Spilling the Beans on the Beanome Project: | Tennessee Council for Professional Archaeology
- Phaseolus polystachios (wild bean): Go Botany
- Dohle S, Berny Mier y Teran JC, Egan A, Kisha T, and Khoury CK (2019). “Wild Beans (Phaseolus L.) of North America”. In: Greene SL, Williams KA, Khoury CK, Kantar MB, and Marek LF, eds., North American Crop Wild Relatives, Volume 2: Important Species. Springer. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-97121-6_4. Available online at: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-319-97121-6_4
- Genetic Diversity of North American Wild kidney bean (Phaseolus polystachios) in the Eastern US Publication : USDA ARS
- Archaeological Investigations at Kellytown (40WM10): A Fortified Late Mississippian Village in Middle Tennessee’s Harpeth River Drainage, Davidson and Williamson Counties, Tennessee
About the Author: John Schwartzer
John Schwartzer is the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Bureau of Forestry woodland stewardship practices specialist. He is a 2008 graduate of The Pennsylvania State University with a B.S. in Forest Science. Before taking on his current role, he was a DCNR service forester for seven years educating and assisting forest landowners in southcentral Pennsylvania. His other previous occupations include research aide, a brief stint as an arborist, and he has been a forest technician for the US Forest Service, PA Game Commission, and DCNR Bureau of Forestry. John lives on a small hobby farm in Perry County PA with his wife Kellie and two sons. If he’s not reading a book, you can find him playing in his woodlot. John is an avid hunter, lackluster angler, wild food/foraging enthusiast, and hopeless gardener.
