Also, it has been found that cranberry sauce, turkey... had no place in the original and puritanical Thanksgiving feast .
One of my 7th great great grandfather's was there on the occasion of the first harvest festivities - 3 days of it - for the giving of thanks. He wrote a journal for his descendants and he listed many of the foods they had for the first Thanksgiving. I wont list them all - but there was roast duck roast goose, and other wild "fowle", cod, bass and other fish, clams and other shellfish, venison, white bread, corn bread, white and red wine made from local wild grapes, berries and many wild "turkies."
Now the area around Plymouth is rich in cranberry bogs - so I don't think you can empirically claim they did NOT have cranberries. And as for the "turkies" - I'll take his word for it - he was there. Were you?
As to the rum, etc - in those days, in England, if you drank water, you were like to die for England was so polluted at the time that it was only safe to drink ale, beer, etc.. It was the rule of the day.
After a bit in the new world, they discovered the water was safe = and they wrote home to remark at it so being - clear and sweet.
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