Members of the local Wampanoag Tribe who graciously accepted the Pilgrims’ offer to break bread together appeared strangely uninterested in the Pilgrims’ world-famous homemade smallpox casserole and declined to even try it.
“Wow, they won’t even try it? So rude,” Jeffrey Pilgrim said, shaking his head in disbelief. “They don’t know what they’re missing.”
Although polite in their demeanor, the Indian peoples’ refusal of the homemade smallpox casserole offended Mrs. Jill Pilgrim, who had slaved over it for hours in the kitchen.
“Why don’t they want to try my casserole? They’re so savage!” she said in a moment of frustration. “Don’t they know how hard I worked on it? We don’t even have ovens, it was very hard to make.”
Squanto, an Indian who served as interpreter during the meal, attempted to smooth things over by explaining his people were trying to cut back on smallpox, but this did little to encourage the civilized Pilgrims who knew better than to not try someone’s dish.
“I tried the weird corn thing, the least they can do is have a little smallpox casserole,” noted John Pilgrim. “So uncivilized.”
At publishing time, the Indians eventually succumbed to the Pilgrims’ passive aggressive bullying and tried the casserole.
