Think back to the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving. Now consider the menu. Sometimes historic events seem far removed from life as we know it, but in little ways there are concrete connections. Food is one of them.
I suppose turkey back then would taste like a wild turkey now, sort of stringy and maybe a bit gamey. Pheasant, well, pheasant is pheasant. About the same for duck and venison and stream caught trout, too.
Corn back then would taste like field corn now, and you'd need good teeth to get through it on the cob so it's no wonder they popped it or ground it first. Winter squash back then probably tasted like a gourd now, but I'll bet the seeds were fine. And let's face it, dried beans are dried beans.
When we move into fruits and berries and nuts, maybe there are more similarities than differences. Apples then could be like a crabapple now, and so on. But a wild persimmon is a wild persimmon and a wild rose hip is a rose hip. Dried fruit should be pretty similar, too, since a dried wild blueberry or cranberry is a dried wild blueberry or cranberry. Yum!
And nuts should be about the same -- a black walnut from a big old black walnut tree is not going to have changed much. The tree might be a direct descendant from a tree that lived when the Pilgrims came. Now that's amazing.
Happy Thanksgiving!
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