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SALT LAKE CITY -- If you're interested in an authentic Thanksgiving experience at your meal Thursday, you may want to include eel and venison on your shopping list.
At Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, they've been attempting to recreate some of the traditional pilgrim food -- along with the more palatable fare -- during their "Eat Like a Pilgrim" event that ended Monday.
Executive Chef Jason Merryweather this year added smoked eel to the menu, venison roast and venison stew. "That eel was excellent," Merryweather said. "It was a smoked eel and, you know, a lot back then they smoked things, no refrigerators."
They also served warm goat's milk along with roast turkey and pork. For dessert, diners were served a berry cobbler. That's something else Merryweather said was probably far from the original feast.
"Sugar wasn't readily available then so you didn't get a whole lot of sweets," he said.
For the most part, people who dared partake of the original items liked them, with the exception of the warm goat's milk.
One thing Merryweather won't try to duplicate is the cooking method. "They cooked in pottery, they cooked with fire. You know, we don't have the ash on the meat," he said.
They also did away with serving bread in single loaves this year. While it was novel for people to break pieces off a loaf, with concerns over things like H1N1, Merryweather said they opted to slice the bread first.
Cooking was just part of the event that also included period dress and games.
E-mail: mgiauque@ksl.com
