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Turkey
Meleagris gallopavo
Benjamin
Franklin preferred the turkey
over the eagle for the national
emblem of the USA.
He
wrote: " I wish the eagle had
not been chosen as the representative
of our country. He is a
bird of bad moral character, like
those among men who live by sharping
and robbing, he is generally poor,
and often very lousy.
The turkey is a much more respectable
bird, and withal a true original
native of America." ( January
26, 1784 letter to his daughter,
Sarah Bache) He even advocated
putting the big bird on the flag.
Whether Franklin was joking or
not, the turkey is all-American,
if you consider the America beyond
the current boundaries of the
USA. The bird most likely
originates in Central America/Mexico
along with corn (maize), one of
its favorite foods. Wild
turkeys were a fixture of native
American diets. Early European
colonists found them plentiful
in the land.
Turkeys
and thanksgiving rituals of some
sort or another have been celebrated
since pre-Columbian times.
Wild turkeys certainly held off
starvation at the Jamestown, Virginia
colony. Turkey was a part
of the Plymouth, Massachusetts second
thanksgiving feast in 1621 and may
have been eaten at the first
in 1620
Europeans
enthusiastically accepted turkeys
after they arrived from the Americas
after the Spanish conquest in the
early 16th century. Naming
the bird was another matter.
They called the bird after where
they thought it originated.
So we have "coq d'Inde" (the cock
of India) which became the French
"dinde" or "dindon." The English
may have received the first birds
from Turkish merchants and thus
they were called "turkey-cocks."
Turkey
prices were fixed in London markets
by mid-1550's. In France,
Queen Marguerite of Navarre is recorded
to have raised turkeys at Alencon
in 1534; and 66 turkeys were served
at a feast for Catherine de'Medici
in 1549. In Belgium, turkey
prepared in three different
ways (boiled with oysters, roasted
and served cold, and in a
pasty) was served in 1557 at a banquet
held in Liege."
Quoting
from The
Oxford Companion to Food
by Alan Davidson on the origin and
types of turkeys:
"Wild turkeys of North America are
much leaner and more streamlined
birds than their modern descendants.
In their natural state they live
in flocks, roosting in swampy areas
and feeding on woodland berries
and seeds. They are awkward in flight
but run fast. Two distinct
races of wild turkey are known---one
whose range originally covered eastern
N. America from Canada to Texas,
and another from further south,
around the Gulf of Mexico.
The Mexican variety may have been
more important. They appear to have
been more adaptable and easily domesticated,
but the pre-Columbian history of
the turkey is obscure. It
is thought to have been domesticated
late in the 2nd millennium BC, somewhere
in Central America. By the
time of the Spanish Conquest, it
was reared as a table bird and eaten
by royalty. The earliest full
description of turkeys in Europe
was given by Bernardino de Sahagun
(1529), who recommended the meat
of the hen as fat and savoury, and
recorded several modes of preparation,
incluing in "tamales."
Back
in England in the 17th and
18th centuries, turkey began to
replace the traditional Christmas
goose. Flocks of turkeys were
herded into London on foot starting
in late August from Suffolk and
Norfolk destined to arrive for the
holidays.
Turkey Chase Thanksgiving greeting
postal card, circa 1920's USA
Turkey
farm, 1920's photo, USA
Turkey
Caller #105
Made of Cypress Sassafrass wood
by Curtis Lawrence, Elizabeth,
Louisiana, USA
The turkey hunter scrapes the
cover over a chalked edge making
a squeaking sound that imitates
the male turkey call.
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