One of the biggest holidays in the United States is happening this Thursday – Thanksgiving. This annual holiday, also celebrated in Canada, celebrates the harvest, and is supposedly modeled on 1621 harvest feast shared by English colonists and the native Wampanoag tribe at Plymouth in what is now the U.S. state of Massachusetts.
The focus of the modern Thanksgiving celebration could be debated. For some it’s about watching American football - all day long. For others it’s about drinking copious quantities of beer - all day long. For most, it’s about overeating – all day long. And when it comes to overeating, for nearly all, the main focus is the turkey.
(Well, maybe not that turkey…)
So, we thought this holiday of excess would be a good excuse for us to take a quick look at “the turkey”.
The turkey is a large bird native to North America. The earliest turkeys evolved over 20 million years ago.
They share a common ancestor with grouse, pheasants and other fowl. The wild turkey.....
was domesticated approximately 2,000 years ago.
Although native to North America, the turkey probably got its name from the domesticated variety being imported to Britain in ships coming from the Levant. The British at the time associated the bird with the country Turkey and the name stuck.
Some turkey trivia for you: In 2021 there were more than 216 million turkeys on farms across the U.S. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the heaviest turkey ever weighed in at 86 lbs. (39 kg).
A baby turkey is called a “poult”. A male turkey is called a “tom” and a female is called a “hen”. According to the National Turkey Federation, the average turkey has around 3500 feathers. A wild turkey can fly at speeds up to 55 mph (88 kph).
It has become a tradition for the sitting U.S. President to “pardon” the White House turkey every thanksgiving. It’s disputed when this actually started, some saying President Lincoln granted “clemency” to a turkey in 1863, but really become a holiday tradition when President Kennedy pardoned a turkey on November 19, 1963, stating “Let’s keep him going”.
So, if you're lucky enough to be the right turkey in the right place at the right time, you’re guaranteed a pretty good retirement plan, compliments of the U.S. government.
Now, we do understand that there are some out there who would be giving us the bird after reading this.
Some who believe that all birds in the United States were exterminated by the federal government between 1959 and 1971, and replaced by lookalike drones used by the government to spy on citizens.
Of course we absolutely respect their right to their opinion (indeed, we devoted an earlier blog post to their movement), but when it comes to turkeys at thanksgiving, all we can say is - if they really are drones, then they are absolutely the tastiest drones we’ve ever come across!
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