Turkey
Friday, December 17, 2004
SIR TOBY BELCH: Here’s an overweening rogue!
FABIAN: O, peace! Contemplation makes a rare turkey-cock of him; how he jets under his advanced plumes!– Twelfth Night by Shakespeare
Turkey has been in the news recently, as it negotiates for entry into the European Union. There are a number of controversies and outstanding questions about whether or not it will be able to join the EU. But there’s an important question that has yet to be answered by the major news media: why is turkey called “turkey”? And why is it so delicious?
Although the turkey is far older as a species than Turkey is as a country, Turkey proudly bore its name well before the turkey arrived on the dinner plates of English-speakers, assuming they used plates in 1530’s England. The bird was brought to England by merchants from an area of the eastern Mediterranean called the Levant, which was then part of the Turkish Empire. The English creatively called these people Turkey merchants, a term that was to become increasingly affectionate as they started hauling in a remarkably tasty bird, a bird that became known as the “Turkey bird”.
The English were the only people who thought the bird came from Turkey. Everybody else, including the Turks, thought it came from India, or at least what they thought was India, but which was actually Mexico. People were pretty confused at this point about where the New World was, but as long as they were getting fat, juicy, tasty birds from there, they didn’t much care.
When people from Britain decided to settle in America in tightly-packed ships, they were faced with a stark choice about what to bring with them: their prized possessions and their children, or as many turkeys as they could carry. The result was the re-introduction of the turkey to North America. The settlers were surprised to find that the turkey already lived in the wild where they landed. I theorize that this is the true origin of Thanksgiving: “Wow, look at all those turkeys! We don’t need to save the ones we got. Let’s eat!”
So why is the turkey so tasty? First of all, there’s something just plain excellent about the meat. It’s firm, it’s juicy, it has a special flavour that makes it different from the plainer taste of chicken. You get dark meat and white meat all in one package. And best of all, you can stuff it! Turkeys are specially designed for maximum stuffing potential. Whether it’s bread and spices, sausage, or another bird, turkeys are all about the chest cavity. And if you’re feeling adventurous (and incredibly ambitious), there’s the turducken, a truly remarkable feat of culinary ingenuity: a deboned chicken, stuffed inside a deboned duck, stuffed inside a deboned turkey, all packed with layers of stuffing.
Turkey is enjoyed all over the world. In India, the turkey is called “gall dindi”, which literally translates to “Indian cock”. Mmmmmmm! If that doesn’t make your mouth water, go to Greece, where it’s called “gallapoula”, which means “French girl”. Opaaaaa!