The cornucopia — a curved horn filled to overflowing with a variety of foods — takes us back to the Greeks. It derives from the Greek myth of a goat-nymph who cared for Zeus as an infant. When one of her horns broke off, Zeus gave it the power to become filled with whatever foods the possessor wished.

In Latin the mythical horn became the cornu copiae, or horn of plenty. Since the original myth invites us to fill the cornucopia with whatever foods we wish, why not fill it with numerous varieties of the three Native American foods that saved the Pilgrims from starvation and contributed to the pleasure of their first Thanksgiving?

Corn is probably the most important of the three. The story of corn's domestication is lost in prehistory, but well before the earliest European explorers reached the Americas, natives of Central and South America were eating domesticated varieties.

Trade networks spread corn northward and eastward, eventually all the way to New England. By the time the Pilgrims arrived, corn was a well-established food crop among the natives they encountered.

Beans followed corn. When the tribes that were growing corn discovered that a certain wild legume eaten together with their corn offered a better food than corn alone, different cultural groups began to develop different beans from the same ancestral plant. Kidney, pinto, navy, and green beans are all varieties of the same species. When the Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth, succotash and baked beans were already regional specialties.

The Native Americans' third contribution, squash, was also among the early domestications. The wild plant was probably first gathered for its edible seeds, but then someone noticed that the flesh had potential too. The seeds, when planted, sometimes produced mutants that were plumper and sweeter tasting than the wild squashes. From that discovery came all our common squashes, including the pumpkins enjoyed by the Pilgrims.

Imagine your Thanksgiving cornucopia filled with as many different kinds of corn, beans, and squash as you wish. How many delicious dishes can you create to thank the Native Americans for their gift of these three now abundantly available foods?

NOTE: Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November. Its date can range from November 22 to November 28.