The North American Turkey (Encore)
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The following is an Encore presentation of Everything Everywhere Daily. For about a month, from the end of November to the end of December, every year, one of the most popular animals in North America is the turkey. Turkeys are the traditional meal served at Thanksgiving and Christmas. However, it's a tradition that's found almost nowhere else on Earth. This is mostly due to the fact that turkeys are native to North America.

Learn more about the turkey, how it became domesticated, and how it became a part of the holidays in North America on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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There were many foods that went from the Americas to the Old World during the Columbian Exchange. Plants such as tomatoes, potatoes, corn, and squash all originated in the New World. However, livestock and other farm animals largely went the other way around. Cattle, pigs, chickens, sheep, and horses were brought over from the Old World, but there was very little in the way of animals that went from the New World to the Old.

Much of this had to do with the fact that there just weren't many domesticated animals in the New World. Llamas were domesticated in South America, but they were of limited use, especially compared to horses. Dogs and guinea pigs were also domesticated, but again, they were pretty small. The only bird species that was domesticated prior to the Columbian Exchange in the Americas was the turkey.

Turkeys are native to North America. For those of you who don't live in North America, they are relatively large, ground-dwelling birds that are part of the order Galliformis, which includes other ground-dwelling birds such as chickens, partridges, pheasants, peafowl, and quail. They aren't as big as an ostrich or an emu, but they are definitely bigger than a chicken. There are only two species of turkey. One species is the oscillated turkey, formerly known as Meliagris ocolata, which is found in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico.

The other species is known as the wild turkey, or Meleagris galopavo. It's found throughout the eastern and central United States and parts of central Mexico. And if you're lucky, you might see some of them in parts of southern Canada, in Ontario, Quebec, and Manitoba. Turkeys are known for the distinctive tail feathers in the males and the fleshy waddle which hangs below their beak. This is known as a snood, which I have a feeling is something that might come in handy someday if you are playing Scrabble.

The oscillated turkey in Mexico is an extremely colorful bird with both male and females that have blue heads. Fossil evidence of other species of turkey have been found in North America, which has led researchers to believe that turkeys evolved and are endemic to the North American continent. One species, the California turkey, is believed to have gone extinct about 10,000 years ago, probably due to overhunting and drought caused by the end of the last ice age.

Bones of California turkeys are actually commonly found in the La Brea tar pits. The wild turkey has five subspecies. The eastern wild turkey, which is by far the most widespread.

the Osceola wild turkey, which is found near the Florida panhandle, the Rio Grande wild turkey, which can be found in Texas and parts of the Southwest, the Merriman's wild turkey, which lives in the Rocky Mountains and Western Great Plains, and finally Gould's wild turkey, which is found in Northern Mexico and parts of Southern Arizona and New Mexico. Wild turkeys were very important to many native peoples throughout North America. They hunted the birds, consumed their eggs, and used their feathers for decoration.

There were stories of controlled fires being used to create habitat for wild turkeys to make them easier to hunt. When Europeans arrived in North America, they also found wild turkeys to be a particularly easy sort of game meat. It's probable that turkey was served at the first Thanksgiving meal, but it also probably wasn't the center of it. It was just one of many foods available. Over the 19th and 20th centuries, the population of wild turkeys declined dramatically due to the loss of habitat and hunting.

In the 17th century, there were believed to be over 10 million wild turkeys in the United States, and by 1930, the population was down to only 30,000. However, in the later 20th century, the wild turkey has been making a stunning comeback. Growing up, I never saw wild turkeys. However, where I live now, I see wild turkeys all the time, and it's not uncommon to see dozens of wild turkeys out in the field feeding.

The domestication of turkeys probably first happened about 2,800 years ago somewhere in central Mexico. The wild turkey is surprisingly easy to domesticate. In the course of doing research for this episode, I found several examples of people who've incubated abandoned wild turkey eggs and then raised the turkeys as pets. The turkeys immediately attached to the humans. They would follow them around and even after they were adults would often perch themselves right next to them on chairs.

The ease in domestication is because turkeys are highly social creatures who will adopt people or other domesticated turkeys as their flock. This is one of the reasons turkey meat and eggs were an important protein for people who lived in Mesoamerica. When the Spanish arrived in the Americas, they brought turkeys back to Spain. In Spain, they actually had a great deal of success breeding turkeys and developing several new breeds of turkey, including the Spanish Black and the Royal Palm.

In the 16th century, it's believed that English navigator William Strickland brought turkeys to England. And there are some reports as early as 1573 of turkeys showing up at Christmas markets in England. While turkeys were grown and consumed in Europe, they never achieved the same level of popularity as goose or duck. When England established its first colony in North America at Jamestown in 1608, domesticated turkeys were brought with the settlers from England, thus now making the round trip across the Atlantic.

So the modern domesticated turkey is the ancestor of birds that were domesticated in Mexico, taken to Europe, and then brought back to the Americas. Here I should probably address how the bird was given the name turkey, which I'm sure you may have realized at a very young age happens to share the same name as a country. There are several reasons as to how the name came about. One theory holds that the bird was misidentified by Europeans when they arrived in the Americas as guinea fowl.

At the time, guinea fowl were being brought into Europe by Ottoman traders via Constantinople. Because of the confusion, they were named turkey cocks and turkey hens, and later turkey fowl, which was just shortened to turkey. The other theory holds that turkeys didn't come to England directly from the Americas, but rather they arrived from ships that came from Constantinople. They were again dubbed turkey cocks and turkey hens, or collectively turkey fowl, and then just shortened to turkey.

In both cases, the bird was named after the country due to confusion about its origin. Turkeys were a popular food source in the American colonies, but by no means the primary food source. What turkeys had going for them was that domesticated turkeys could be raised and wild turkeys could be hunted. The tradition of cooking a turkey for a holiday meal actually came from the English, who would often have a goose or duck for Christmas.

There's an apocryphal story of Benjamin Franklin proposing that the national bird of the United States be the turkey rather than the bald eagle. This isn't quite true. In a letter written to his daughter Sarah in 1784, he wrote the following, "...for my own part, I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country. He is a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his living honestly."

You may have seen him perched on some dead tree, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labor of the fishing hawk, and when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish and is bearing it to his nest for the support of his mate and young ones, the bald eagle pursues him and takes it from him. The turkey is, in comparison, a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America."

The letter was not a serious proposal, and it was just written to his daughter, not to any official in the government. It was really just a tongue-in-cheek joke, and there's no indication that he really thought that the turkey should replace the eagle. Alexander Hamilton was reported to have said, quote, However, turkey still wasn't associated with Thanksgiving or really any special meal.

It wasn't until the 19th century that this developed as a trend. Much of this was influenced by writers like Charles Dickens, who wrote of having a goose for Christmas in his 1843 book A Christmas Carol, and by American authors such as Sarah Josepha Hale, who wrote about a turkey dinner in her 1823 book Northwood. One of the big reasons why turkey became popular was because it was a native bird to the United States. Turkey had become the primary meal served at Thanksgiving dinner in New England by 1857.

When Thanksgiving was popularized during the Civil War, turkey had already been well-established as the meal for the holiday. Turkey also became a popular dish served at Canadian Thanksgiving, which currently takes place in October. One of the more recent traditions surrounding turkeys is the presentation and pardoning of a turkey before Thanksgiving by the President of the United States. Turkeys had been sent to President by Rhode Island poultry dealer Horace Vose starting with Ulysses S. Grant.

He sent a turkey to the president every year until 1913. In 1946, the tradition was revived by the National Turkey Federation and the Poultry and Egg National Board. They sent a turkey to the White House, where President Truman appeared publicly with the turkey to take photos. The turkeys delivered to Presidents Truman and Eisenhower actually wound up as Thanksgiving meals. President John Kennedy spared his turkey in 1963, just days before he left for Dallas, where he was later assassinated.

The sparing of the presidential turkey became the new tradition, but at no point was the term pardon ever used. It was first used by Ronald Reagan in 1987 as an offhand joke. And starting in 1989, President George H.W. Bush performed a mock pardon ceremony for the turkey, which has been done ever since. Cooking turkey has always been a bit challenging. Unlike other types of fowl, turkey has a tendency to be somewhat dry.

The turkey baster was invented to help solve this problem. Juices from the pan have to be constantly squirted over the turkey to prevent this dryness. One of the newest ways to cook turkey is by deep frying it, which is much more difficult than it actually sounds. It requires a very large pot and a whole lot of oil. And it has to be done outside because it can be extremely dangerous.

A wet turkey that is submerged in hot oil too quickly can cause a boil over, which can result in a massive fireball. While turkey was traditionally only consumed at Thanksgiving and Christmas, it's actually become more popular throughout the year in the form of sliced turkey meat and ground turkey meat. It's been marketed as a low-fat alternative to other meat products. Sliced turkey and other processed turkey products can be found in many countries. However, it can be very difficult to find whole turkeys.

I remember being in Bangkok during one Thanksgiving and there was one store that catered to Westerners that had whole turkeys, but they only had a small number and they were ridiculously expensive. In many countries, not only can you not find whole turkeys, but many homes don't even have ovens that are large enough to cook them. You can find whole turkeys in the United Kingdom where there are a fair number of turkey producers, but they still aren't nearly as popular as they are in the United States and Canada.

Today, the worldwide turkey market is about 600 million birds per year, only about 1% that of the global chicken market. Today, a roasted turkey is a central element of many Thanksgiving celebrations in the United States and Canada, symbolizing gratitude and the communal spirit of the holiday. And we owe it all to the ancient people of central Mexico, who 2,800 years ago decided to domesticate this wild bird.

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