Their food stores depleted, and unprepared for the brutal New England winter, the English pilgrims actually resorted to stealing from the Indians during those first months of hunger. When the pilgrims harvested their first American crops in 1621, only the maize yielded enough grain to last the following winter. Meanwhile, the Old World wheat, barley, and peas they had planted failed. On the menu was duck, roast goose, deer, clams, eels, leeks, watercress, and wild plums. Bread made from corn shared the table with English steamed puddings made from wheat, and popcorn fell on European tastebuds for the first time.
Some accounts claim that the feast lasted three days.
Most significantly, though, the foods they ate that year combined a bit of the old with a bit of the new, thus giving birth to an original American cuisine integrating the techniques of old world gastronomy with new world ingredients. At one diner he sent out invitations to a funeral procession and banquet. His aristocratic guests arrived in mourning and were led to a black-curtained room dominated by central catafalque. The dinner service consisted of numerous courses, one of them composed entirely of pork. And the guests ate them from their own open coffins, while spectators strolled through the room to watch the feast taking place.