It’s November and you’re probably craving turkey.
The fowl has long been the centerpiece of the traditional American Thanksgiving meal, but contrary to tradition, turkey may not have been part of the 1621 feast at Plymouth Colony.
Descriptions of the three-day feast shared by the Pilgrims and Native Americans from the local Wampanoag tribe include wild fowl, deer, and local vegetables, but there was no specific mention of turkey.
For centuries, different cultures and religions have celebrated their harvests with a Thanksgiving feast, but the version of the Pilgrim’s feast didn’t come about until the 1800s. It was during this period that roasted turkey became ingrained in the traditional American Thanksgiving meal.
In 1827, author Sarah Josepha Hale devoted a chapter of her novel “Northwood; a Tale of New England” to describing her ideal version of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. In the book, Hale writes “the roasted turkey took precedence on this occasion, being placed at the head of the table; and well did it become its lordly station.”
The traditional image of a feast, complete with stuffed turkey and numerous other dishes, took root in 1889 when noted American author Jane G. Austin wrote a fictional account of the 1621 feast in her book “Standish of Standish: A Story of The Pilgrims.”
Austin’s description didn’t mention the malnutrition and deaths at the Plymouth Colony that winter, but her account was popular and it became the foundation for other writing, public plays and events, and eventually, school curriculum.
In 1863, a proclamation by Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving a national “day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens,” to be celebrated on the last Thursday of November. In the latter half of the 1800s, Thanksgiving was frequently referred to as “turkey day,” and in 1885, Congress made the celebration a paid federal holiday for all U.S. workers.
Turkey was a favorite meat for Europeans long before the Plymouth feast, and local wild turkeys were a plentiful source of food for Native Americans and the New England settlers.
California’s early settlers didn’t have wild turkey as an option for their Thanksgiving feasts, since the birds were not native to the region. Wild turkeys were first introduced into California in 1877, by private ranchers on Santa Cruz Island for game hunting.
Unlike their domesticated brethren, wild turkeys are excellent short-distance fliers, and they are good sport for hunters. Also, most turkey fans don’t know that a male turkey is a tom or gobbler, a young male is a jake, females are hens, a young female is a jenny, and babies are a poult or chick.
Turkey production in California grew steadily through the late 1800s, but it lagged behind the eastern and Midwest states. In 1869, California’s production records showed 157,228 turkeys being raised on poultry ranches, as compared to 1,459,069 chickens. The total human population of the state at that time was about 550,000.
Today, the broad-breasted white turkey is the most widely used breed of commercially raised turkeys. They cannot fly and weigh up to 40 pounds.
In the larger cities, many residents in the late 1800s ate Thanksgiving dinner at a hotel restaurant. In 1876, San Bernardino residents could get a complete Thanksgiving dinner including turkey stuffed with oysters, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin, lemon, or custard pie, for 25 cents at the Arcade Hotel.
The price of a Thanksgiving turkey dinner at a restaurant remained surprisingly steady for many years in the late 1800s.
In November 1894, you could still get a turkey dinner with oyster dressing, cranberry sauce, and English plum pudding, for 25 cents at People’s Restaurant in Los Angeles. By 1910, the price for a restaurant turkey dinner with the traditional sides had risen to about 50 cents.
In 1908, the California Fish and Game Commission released turkeys into the San Bernardino Mountains for game-stocking purposes. These transplantations were largely unsuccessful for gaming, but in other parts of the state, wild turkey transplants run free.
During World War I and II, meat was sometimes scarce, and turkey was among the most expensive and difficult to obtain.
In 1919, one year after World War I, Patton State Hospital held the largest Thanksgiving meal in California, with 2,500 attendees (about 2,175 patients and 300 staff members). Even a year after the war, turkey was too expensive so the huge crowd was served ham.
The poultry giant Foster Farms began its operations in Modesto in 1939. At that time, the retail price for turkey in California was about 20 to 25 cents per pound. By 1960, the retail price for turkey had risen to 33 to 39 cents per pound.
Turkey had become the undisputed main feature of the American Thanksgiving dinner, and in 1947, the National Turkey Federation began the tradition of presenting a live turkey to the President of the United States.
On Nov. 19, 1963, John F. Kennedy issued the first presidential pardon for a turkey, sparing its life and sending the 55 pound bird back to its home in Sunnymead, California. The practice was carried on by subsequent presidents, and in 1989 President George H.W. Bush made the pardoning ceremony an official tradition.
In 2021, turkey costs could rise and it’s possible there will be supply chain problems that could make finding a bird challenging.
Regardless of pricing or supply issues, the 400-year tradition of a Thanksgiving turkey dinner will continue.
For Thanksgiving this year, analysts are predicting that 88% of Americans will eat turkey and they will consume about 46 million of the birds at a cost of over $900 million.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Mark Landis is a freelance writer. He can be reached at historyinca@yahoo.com.
Why do we eat turkey on Thanksgiving? The history of the holiday tradition - San Bernardino County Sun
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