Of the nine books included in the Little House on the Prairie Series, only one tells the story of an Ingalls family Thanksgiving. On The Banks of Plum Creek tells of their simple Thanksgiving during their first year in Minnesota. However, the idea of giving thanks wasn’t an unfamiliar theme in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books. In fact, she often dwells with a thankful spirit on her childhood in her chapters that focus on Pa’s fiddle playing, Ma’s presence, or Christmas.
It is possible that the reason she focuses specifically on the holiday in On the Banks of Plum Creek is because it is a prelude to the horror of the locust swarms that destroy their crops and livelihood.
The Menu at Plum Creek
For Thanksgiving, the Ingalls ate stewed wild goose (because there was no fireplace or oven for roasting it in), dumplings and gravy, corn dodgers, mashed potatoes, butter, milk, and stewed dried plums. In addition, “…three grains of parched corn lay beside each tin plate. At the first Thanksgiving dinner the poor Pilgrims had had nothing to eat but three parched grains of corn. Then the Indians came and brought them turkeys, so the Pilgrims were thankful.
Now, after they had eaten their good, big Thanksgiving dinner, Laura and Mary could eat their grains of corn and remember the Pilgrims. Parched corn was good. It crackled and crunched and its taste was sweet and brown.”
Making an Authentic Little House Thanksgiving
For purists, the place to find recipes that duplicate Ma’s meal is The Little House Cookbook: Frontier Foods from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Classic Stories by Barbara M. Walker. Walker began researching the foods described so lovingly by Laura Ingall’s Wilder when her four-year-old daughter wanted to eat pancake men just like Laura. As her daughter grew, so did their involvement in making Little House on the Prairie dishes. As time progressed, Walker’s desire to create authentic recipes for all the foods mentioned in Little House on the Prairie grew. Eventually, she compiled them in this cookbook for those who share her interest in authentic historical foods.
In The Little House Cookbook, Walker not only provides recipes but she describes how the raw ingredients have changed and recommends how to get the closest possible ingredients to what would have been used during pioneer times.
In addition, she explains how labor intensive some of the dishes were to make. For instance, Walker points out that whenever Laura describes special occasion meals, she mentions mashed potatoes. Walker argues that there is a good reason for this. “You can best appreciate just how special mashed potatoes are when you make them without the aid of electrical appliances…they require strenuous effort in the kitchen.”
Duplicating the Meal for Modern Tastes
For those interested in duplicating the Ingalls' Thanksgiving meal for their family without putting forth quite so much effort or who wish to make it more palatable to modern tastes, alternatives abound. Buy a domestic goose or a duck and roast it in the oven. Trade corn bread for the corn dodgers. Make fried apples from dehydrated dried apples instead of stewed plums. Regardless of the substitutions you make, try to include real parched corn and refer to the story in the book, which is found in the twelfth chapter; The Christmas Horses.
Read more about Laura Ingalls Wilder and her books at Suite101.
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