There's a Wild Part of the Thanksgiving Story That's Been Invisible to Us for Centuries. Until Now.

"In the fray of the holiday, we often forget the significance of the food on the Thanksgiving table. Almost all of it is made from ingredients-plants and animals-that are native to the Americas. Squash, beans, and corn. Cranberries, blueberries, and pumpkin. The tender turkey and the humble potatoes. It is the contents of the banquet that give it context, underscoring its origins as an event of intercontinental exchange between the Native cultures of the Americas and the interloping Europeans."

"But invisible organisms were also exchanged-microbes unseen by the human eye stowed away on fruit skins, in animal hides, and even in the wood of the ships themselves. Galleons carrying humans carrying diseases arrived in the Americas. Viruses like smallpox and bacteria like typhus came from Europe and decimated Indigenous populations who had no immunity, never having been exposed to the microbial scourges before."

Thanksgiving foods largely originate in the Americas, including squash, beans, corn, cranberries, blueberries, pumpkin, turkey, and potatoes. Those ingredients reflect deep exchange between Native American cultures and arriving Europeans. Centuries of trans-Atlantic swaps introduced new species around the world, such as the tomato in Italian cooking and horses on North American plains. Invisible microbes also traveled on fruit skins, animal hides, and ship wood, transmitting diseases like smallpox and typhus that devastated Indigenous peoples lacking immunity. Germ theory was not yet understood when these exchanges began. Microbes also shaped culinary practices, including an early unseen exchange that changed fermented beverages via yeast movement.

Read at Slate Magazine