Garbanzo stew, hard sea biscuits and red wine, deer, gopher tortoise, shark, drum, mullet and sea catfish, maize, beans, squash, nuts, fruits, and miscellaneous greens.

     Possible menu items for the first Thanksgiving in today's continental United States, according to University of Florida Historian Michael Gannon, whose carefully researched assertion has earned him the epithet up Massachusetts way as "The Grinch Who Stole Thanksgiving."

     That stew would include garbanzo beans, salted pork, and garlic, while most of the other entres could have been brought by natives of the region.

     The founding and settlement of Florida in the 16th century brought a blending of European, African, and Native American foodways and the birth of the first uniquely American cuisine.

     Florida's food-related firsts include:

·  1521 The first introduction of Old World livestock, food crops, and draft animals into the continental U.S. by Ponce de León at the first European colony in southwest Florida

·  1576 The first restaurants/bars - the Olmos family ran a taberna (tavern) in St. Augustine, while another was owned by Don Martín de Argüelles the Elder, the city's first alcalde (mayor)

·  1580s The first agricultural exports in the continental U.S. - shipments of onions began from St. Augustine to Havana

·  1598 The first public market in the continental U.S., established by Governor Don Gonzalo Méndez de Canzo, who also built the first grist mill and the first slaughterhouse

· 1640 The first cattle ranches in the continental U.S. - the Hacienda de la Chua (now Alachua County, FL) was founded by the Menéndez Marquez family

·  1640s The first cattle drives in the continental U.S. - Native American and African vaqueros (cowboys) were driving herds to St. Augustine, where the cattle were slaughtered, the beef sold, and the hides and tallow exported to Havana

Compiled by Davis Walker of Los Compañeros de la Cocina