Why we eat turkey on Thanksgiving (and why I won't).
Throughout the year, we’d see all types of animals daily: squirrels and chipmunks; deer innocently dropping their heads into my mother’s shrubs for a nibble; even the occasional bear, clumsily sifting through our garbage in search of a late-night snack.
But turkeys, it seemed, mostly made their cameos on the cusp of fall . Driving down windy roads, we’d see a cluster of the wild variety dart across the street—a hen leading a pack of small turkey chicks, aka “poults,” or the occasional male turkey, otherwise known as a “tom” or a “gobbler,” bright red waddle and fanned out tail feathers wiggling furiously as he ran to safety.But of course, most of us don’t cook wild turkey .
According to Jonathan Gunther—lawyer with the NY Department of Environmental Conservation, avid outdoorsman and this writer’s cousin—turkeys become more active twice per year: in spring during mating season and again at the tailend of summer.“They become more visible in late August possibly because they’ve finally grown to a certain size and are more mobile,” he tells me. “Also, they prepare for winter by loading up on grasshoppers and other bugs found in more open areas.
So springtime they’re on the prowl and feeling frisky, but by end-of-summer, they’ve all but resigned to acquiring some extra winter pudge.Per tradition, most of us feel obliged to cook turkey on Thanksgiving. We might incorporate our own spin—deep-fried, brined, or preceded by a large serving of lasagna, like my Aunt Vicky—but turkey, in one form or another, remains theEarly in the morning, after coffee but still in pyjamas, my mom would start preparing the turkey.
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