As celebrated in the United States, the holiday of Thanksgiving usually revolves around a bountiful meal. Typical dishes include bread stuffing, potatoes, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and, above all, turkey. How did turkey become the centerpiece of this feast?
It is often assumed that today’s Thanksgiving menu originated in an event commonly referred to as the “first Thanksgiving.” There is indeed evidence of a meal shared between Pilgrim settlers at Plymouth colony (in what is now Massachusetts) and Wampanoag people in late 1621. But there is no indication that turkey was served. For meat, the Wampanoag brought deer, and the Pilgrims provided wild “fowl.” Strictly speaking, that “fowl” could have been turkeys, which were native to the area, but historians think it was probably ducks or geese.
What’s more, the Pilgrims do not appear to have considered this meal a milestone worthy of special commemoration. No 17th-century reference to it exists beyond a letter written by Plymouth colonist Edward Winslow. For the Pilgrims, giving thanks for the autumn harvest wasn’t a new concept. As a tradition with roots in European harvest festivals and Christian religious observances, “days of thanksgiving” were fairly common among the colonists of New England. Throughout America’s colonial era, communities held their own unofficial Thanksgiving celebrations, and few people associated them with the Plymouth settlers.
By the turn of the 19th century, however, turkey had become a popular dish to serve on such occasions. There were a few reasons for this. First, the bird was rather plentiful. One expert estimated that there were at least 10 million turkeys in America at the time of European contact. Second, turkeys on a family farm were almost always available for slaughter. While live cows and hens were useful as long as they were producing milk and eggs, respectively, turkeys were generally raised only for their meat and thus could be readily killed. Third, a single turkey was usually big enough to feed a family.
Nevertheless, turkeys were not yet synonymous with Thanksgiving. Some people have credited Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (1843) with bolstering the idea of turkey as a holiday meal. But another writer, Sarah Josepha Hale, played an arguably more important role. In her 1827 novel Northwood, she devoted an entire chapter to a description of a New England Thanksgiving, with a roasted turkey “placed at the head of the table.” At about the same time, she also began campaigning to establish Thanksgiving as a national holiday in the United States, which she believed would help unify the country as it teetered toward civil war. Her efforts finally paid off in 1863 with a presidential proclamation by Abraham Lincoln.
As Thanksgiving became an official American holiday, a national mythology formed around it. An 1841 collection of Pilgrim writing had referred to the meal described by Winslow as “the first Thanksgiving.” Although Winslow didn’t specifically mention turkey, his fellow colonist William Bradford did refer to a “great store of wild Turkies” at Plymouth that fall, in a journal that was reprinted in 1856. Before long, the cultural links between Pilgrims, turkeys, and Thanksgiving became an inextricable and integral part of American schoolchildren’s education.
From a more practical perspective, turkey has also remained relatively affordable. Although the wild turkey was considered endangered in the early 20th century, its population once again stands in the millions. In addition, modern breeding practices have helped make turkeys both larger and cheaper than ever, thus ensuring their continued place on the Thanksgiving table.
While turkey wasn't likely present in 1621, annual autumnal harvest dinners continued as turkey gained popularity as a source of protein. Indigenous to the area and plentiful, turkeys were larger than chickens, ducks, and geese, making them economical to serve to a crowd.
Thanksgiving-type celebrations were common at the turn of the 19th century with many opting to put a turkey on the table instead of slaughtering a useful animal like a hen or cow that was producing other needed products, according to Britannica. Turkeys at the time, and still today, were raised to be meat birds.
Hale and her colleagues leaned on 1621 lore for historical justification. Like many of her contemporaries, she assumed the Pilgrims ate turkey at their first feast because of the abundance of edible wild turkeys in New England. This campaign took decades, partly due to a lack of enthusiasm among white Southerners.
But like most of the Thanksgiving traditions we know today, turkey didn't become widely synonymous with that November holiday until the mid-19th century. This was largely thanks to the efforts of the writer and editor Sarah Josepha Hale, who became known as the “mother of Thanksgiving.”
While turkey may have been present (wild turkeys were common to the colonial area), no documentary evidence exists that turkey itself was served. If it was, it likely wasn't the main meat source.
An American Feast - Foods that Make Up an American Thanksgiving...
Turkey. Just as it's a traditional meat used for Christmas dinner, turkey is favoured because it's big – and that means it can feed a whole family. ...
According to the National Turkey Federation, an estimated 88 percent of Americans consume Thanksgiving turkey each year. Per the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), this translates to more than 46 million turkeys eaten on Thanksgiving.
"EAT turkey become American" by Marie Myung-Ok Lee is a personal essay that explores the concept of assimilation and the cultural significance of Thanksgiving for immigrants in America.
Although turkeys were indigenous, there's no record of a big, roasted bird at the feast. The Wampanoag brought deer and there would have been lots of local seafood (mussels, lobster, bass) plus the fruits of the first pilgrim harvest, including pumpkin.
Others pinpoint 1637 as the true origin of Thanksgiving, since the Massachusetts Bay Colony's governor, John Winthrop, declared a day to celebrate colonial soldiers who had just slaughtered hundreds of Pequot men, women, and children in what is now Mystic, Connecticut.
Thomas Jefferson was famously the only Founding Father and early president who refused to declare days of thanksgiving and fasting in the United States.
The pilgrims celebrated their successful harvest in 1621 by shooting their guns into the air, which caused Massasoit to bring together warriors and prepare for battle. Instead of fighting, the Wampanoag and pilgrims worked together to prepare a feast.
The centerpiece of contemporary Thanksgiving in the United States is Thanksgiving dinner (informally called turkey dinner), a large meal generally centered on a large roasted turkey.
Domestic turkeys come from the Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), a species that is native only to the Americas. In the 1500s, Spanish traders brought some that had been domesticated by indigenous Americans to Europe and Asia.
Both chicken and turkey provide healthy protein. Generally, chicken tends to be higher in vitamin B6 and pantothenic acid, and turkey tends to be lower in calories, fat, and sodium while having more zinc, niacin, and vitamin B12.
Introduction: My name is Domingo Moore, I am a attractive, gorgeous, funny, jolly, spotless, nice, fantastic person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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