Succotash

The succotash that might have gone around the table in the seventeenth century was later described as “Plymouth succotash” or “winter succotash.” It would have been the typical standing dish of all the eastern Native tribes, a stew of field corn or lye hominy with shell beans and either fresh or preserved meat or fish or both. By the mid-nineteenth century, Plymouth succotash was a winter dish of lye hominy, dried beans, and corned beef. It was made in large quantities, and leftovers were sometimes frozen for future use. In Native homes, this stew was constantly on or near the fire, added to as needed or possible, and taken from as people were hungry. It got its English name from the Narragansett msíckquatash, “boiled whole kernel corn.” An early reference in English is the 1769 menu for the Plymouth Founder’s Day dinner at which men commemorated the Indian foods eaten by their ancestors. The word appears more often around the turn of the nineteenth century for a stew of fresh shell beans and corn. The most widely read early reference was a somewhat garbled one in Cooper’s 1826 novel, The Last of the Mohicans.