This Thanksgiving, here’s a helping of turkey trivia to gobble up

Let’s talk turkey. How did this large fowl, which has paraded unchallenged for centuries as the holiday centerpiece, come to be synonymous with an iconic American tradition? Read on for some turkey trivia to share around the table.

How much turkey do Americans eat?

Farmers in the United States raise 210 million to 215 million turkeys a year, says Leslee Oden, CEO of the National Turkey Federation. The highest-producing state is Minnesota (with 37 million birds), followed by North Carolina and Arkansas.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday alone, Americans will dine on about 40 million pounds of turkey, says Ms. Oden. In 2023, Americans ate more than 5 billion pounds of turkey, about 15 pounds per person, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Where are turkeys from?

Wild turkeys are indigenous to North America, having foraged their way from Central America up to eastern Canada. They were domesticated in Mexico by the Aztecs, who roasted the guajolote on a large spit and used its feathers to decorate clothing and blankets. Spaniards brought the bird back to European trading markets in the 1500s, where it soon found its way to fancy English dinner parties. Wealthy English, who loved to impress guests with exotic birds as the meal’s centerpiece, named the fowl after the far-off place some merchants had carted it from: Turkey. The name stuck.

Didn’t Benjamin Franklin think the turkey should be the national bird?

Not exactly. Remember that Franklin was a satirist. In January 1784, Franklin privately wrote to his daughter, Sarah Bache, “For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen as the Representative of our Country.” In context, Franklin was critiquing a rather dumpy drawing of an eagle lacking a regal beak by the Society of the Cincinnati, which had adopted the nation’s bird as its symbol. The national punch line was that the Cincinnati eagle looked more like a turkey. In short, think of Franklin’s letter to his daughter as an early dad joke. (Hear more about that in a podcast conversation with Kendra at the bottom of this article.) 

Why is turkey associated with Thanksgiving?

The only existing eyewitness account of diplomatic talks between the settling English and the Wampanoag tribe is a 1621 journal entry that includes numerous references to bagging “fowl,” which came to be interpreted as the roaming “turkey.” A century on, “turkey” appeared firmly rooted in American culinary literature and practices. Amelia Simmons’ 1796 “American Cookery,” widely considered the first American cookbook, includes instructions on how “to stuff and roast a Turkey, or Fowl.” In 1827, novelist Sarah Josepha Hale romanticized the role of the turkey in “Northwood: A Tale of New England,” in which she described the ideal Thanksgiving dinner: “The roasted turkey took precedence on this occasion, being placed at the head of the table; and well did it become its lordly station.”

Later, Hale launched a letter-writing campaign to politicians, imploring them to make the Northeast tradition of a Thanksgiving feast a nationwide holiday. She is largely credited with influencing Abraham Lincoln to declare a National Day of Thanksgiving and Praise in 1863 amid the Civil War.

Why does the president pardon turkeys?

It’s unclear which president first officially pardoned a turkey – some say it was Lincoln, who turned a turkey into a family pet. Others say it was John F. Kennedy. Regardless, for the past 76 years, the National Turkey Federation has been delivering a live turkey to the White House. George H.W. Bush officially made the pardon an annual event.

The National Turkey Federation chairman has the honor of keeping the “presidential flock.” Two turkeys are selected from the flock for the voyage to Washington, explains Ms. Oden, in case the official turkey gets stage fright. To prepare for the trip, the turkeys are carefully tended by the farmer, who exposes them to camera lights, pompoms, music, and crowds. Then comes an informal beauty pageant to select the finest turkey in the land. “It’s the one that ultimately struts around the best, has the most beautiful feathers, and really most important is their temperament,” says Ms. Oden. “They are going to go meet the leader of the free world, and we want to make sure that they act on their best behavior.”

This year, turkeys Peach and Blossom traveled from a Minnesota farm by private coach. After arriving in Washington, they stayed in a hotel suite at the Willard InterContinental to rest up for their big moment. Later, it’s back on the coach for the trek home to Minnesota, where they will live out their lives at Farmamerica, an educational farm, as feathered ambassadors.