From Susan/Miranda:
As Edith reminded us yesterday and as every scrap of electronic and paper media is likewise doing, this is Thanksgiving Week in America. No matter how culturally diverse the backgrounds of modern-day Americans may be, they’re all unified on this one day by one great thing: TURKEY.
People who don’t even like this noble fowl will still consume it by the truckload on Thursday, just as cooks who never cook turkeys any other time of the year will feel compelled to engage in Kitchen Battle with a frozen chunk of poultry three times the size of the family pet. (And if you’re only deciding to defrost that titanic bird today, it ain’t going be thawed to cook by Thursday.)
But when I began to poke around for a bit of turkey-lore for this blog, I discovered that this bird, so quintessentially American that Benjamin Franklin (a quintessential American himself) wanted it for the national bird, was so quickly embraced into English barnyards that by the time of most of the Wench’s books, Tom Turkey has ceased to be perceived as a Native American at all.
I’m going to quote at length here from one of my favorite historical food books, MARTHA WASHINGTON’S BOOK OF COKKERY transcribed by Karen Hess (Columbia University Press, c. 1985, 1991, and still available at Amazon. Despite a title that sounds like D.A.R. recopies for cherry pie, this is a book of family recopies from Elizabethan and Jacobean England, passed down through the generations, and enhanced with tremendous research and commentary by Ms. Hess. Definitely worth adding to your library!
Now, about those turkeys:
“Two quite different birds have been known as turkey in English. First was the guinea fowl, Nunuda, native to Africa and known to Aristotle and Pliny; curiously, it seems not to have been known in England until early in the sixteenth century. OED explains the name of turkey by its importation into England through “Turkish dominions.” (Just so, maize was called Turkey Corn.) Then, in 1518, the Conquistadores found in Mexico what we now call turkey, already domesticated by the Aztecs. It was immediately confused with the guinea fowl and called turkey. Linnaeus later compounded the confusion by given the ancient name Leleagris to the usurper, the American turkey.
“Sixteenth-century citations of turkey can be maddeningly frustrating; it is often difficult to know what certainty which bird is meant. . . .In FOOD & DRINK IN BRITAIN, C. Anne Wilson tells us that by 1555, the sale of turkeys was such that their price in the London market was officially fixed, along with those of other poultry; a turkey-cock cost six shillings that year, which seems to me a very high price.
“As always, cookbooks lagged behind usages. But in 1586, Thomas Dawson gives us an elaborate recipe for turkey that involved deboning it. By 1615, when Markham published THE ENGLISH HUS-WIFE, turkey is mentioned very nearly as frequently as chicken, and has its own recipes and sauces. So that for the Pilgrims, the turkey (albeit a different strain) had long been a familiar bird and must have been a welcome sight in that strange land that was America.”
Happy Thanksgiving!
Hello Susan/Miranda.
What an informative post. Thank you.
I didn't know all that about turkeys, save Mr. Franklin's desire to name it as the national bird. Can't tell you how glad I am that didn't happen. But, if he had succeeded, I wonder, would we still be eating turkey?
Nina, who is not particularly fond of turkey.
Posted by: Nina P | Monday, November 20, 2006 at 06:45 AM
Interesting, Susan Miranda! I knew that the turkey had moved into English kitchens and made itself at home, but hadn't realized how early it happened.
Nina makes an interesting point about whether we'd be gobbling turkey if it had been named the national bird. After all, we don't eat eagle!
When I was a kid, we always had ham, not turkey, since my father wasn't a poultry fan. But really, the menu is less important than the gathering of family and friends. I like that it's a holiday of gratitude and togetherness rather than shopping. (Not that we don't shop like crazy for the food!)
Mary Jo, always fond of the pie course
Posted by: maryjoputney | Monday, November 20, 2006 at 12:20 PM
This was completely enlightening, Susan/Miranda. I had no idea that turkey was on the English menu so early. Meanwhile, I always found it funny that Eastern European immigrants like my family completely bought into the turkey and mashed potatoes and such. I noticed this was the case with recent Albanian immigrants, too. But it seems to me that Thanksgiving is a universal kind of holiday: the gathering of family and the simple giving of thanks seems to fit comfortably with all faiths as well as non-faith. Our family will be having turkey, too, with the standard New England accompaniments--and with some Albanian specialties as well.
Posted by: LorettaChase | Monday, November 20, 2006 at 04:49 PM
LoL... for such an ugly bird the turkey is very well-renowned ~ and tasty too! It's funny how you never really think of the history behind some of the more common, uummm, food? we eat. I had no idea that turkeys were so wide-spread; I figured NA and that's it...shows how much interest I take in fowl history.... ^^
Thanks for the facts and hope you all have a great Thanksgiving...we had ours last month ~ thank heaven!
Kathy
Posted by: Kathy K | Monday, November 20, 2006 at 06:07 PM