Why Do We Associate Turkey With Thanksgiving?
When we think of the modern American Thanksgiving, we often think of football and pre-Christmas consumerism. But nothing defines the holiday’s tradition like family gatherings around stuffed turkey.
Side dishes vary from region to region, but this stuffed fowl unites us Americans on the fourth Thursday of November like nothing else. During Thanksgiving 2017, Americans ate a whopping 45 million turkeys.
But what ties this meat so strongly to Thanksgiving, and has it always been associated with the holiday as if it owns it? People eat turkey at Christmas, but the turkey doesn’t enjoy the exclusive claim to that holiday.
Many point to the Pilgrims’ first Thanksgiving in 1621 as the origin of the holiday. But this is only slightly better than crediting Abner Doubleday with the invention of baseball.
When the Pilgrims settled New England, the people of the British Isles celebrated Harvest Home in late September — a harvest festival accompanied by a feast, dancing, and decorations. It was this celebration that the Pilgrims would have celebrated in the fall of 1621, and to which they introduced the Wampanoags.
But the Pilgrims and their native friends may or may not have eaten turkey at this “first Thanksgiving.” Edward Winslow records that Governor William Bradford sent…
