If you want to understand the sheer extent of the American relationship with turkey, consider TV dinner. In 1952, Swanson was the world’s largest turkey producer and had a lot of unsold turkeys left over after Thanksgiving and Christmas. To combat some unwanted poultry, the company created the first turkey TV dinner including cornbread stuffing and sweet potatoes. Some doubted whether Americans would want to eat roast turkey all year round, but by the end of their first year on the market, 10 million of these new frozen dinners had been sold.
This year’s Thanksgiving will test just how much Americans love eating turkey. The turkey industry has been hit hard by avian flu, which has resulted in the death of entire flocks. About 80% of fresh sales of whole turkeys typically occur in November, but prices are nearly twice as high as last year, and some sizes of birds are becoming increasingly rare.
Yet something tells me it will take longer than this to banish turkey from the Thanksgiving table – if I’m allowed to comment on the subject as a British man with American relatives. In 2020, approximately 46 million whole turkeys were consumed on Thanksgiving alone, and according to the National Turkey Federation, more than 90% of Americans consume turkey as part of the Thanksgiving dinner.
Nothing in the American diet has been raved about so universally as the Thanksgiving turkey. For the vast majority of Americans, a giant roast bird is a non-negotiable part of the holiday feast. As food writer J.J. Kenji López-Alt wrote, “Year after year, we gather around the holiday table thinking of that turkey like we think of our family members: one of those things Which we have to put before the wine and the pie kicks in.”
Few dishes create as much cooking anxiety as roast turkey. Since 1981, The Turkey Talk-Line powered by Butterball has been answering questions about preparing the birds. Lines are staffed by people trained to answer complex questions on the merits of spatchcocking, how to cook legs without drying out the white meat, and whether or not it’s worth pre-roasting a turkey. But clearly the most popular question has long been: How do I defrost it? Sadly, if you’re calling to ask on a Thursday morning you’re too late, as the answer has been in the fridge for three or four days.
Tradition is the main reason for the non-negotiable Thanksgiving turkey, although some of the “facts” and quotes you’ll find on the internet about the patriotic qualities of turkeys are simply made up. For example, it is not true that Benjamin Franklin proposed that the turkey should be America’s national bird instead of the bald eagle – although he praised the turkey as “America’s true native”.
In fact, the average American today eats far more turkey than their ancestors did, and the turkey itself is an entirely different bird. Wild turkeys were certainly eaten by the first European colonists, but these were small game birds, unlike the average farmed turkey. Native Americans roasted these tasty birds on spits, and Pilgrims in the Plymouth Colony seem to have eaten them as part of their second Thanksgiving dinner in 1623. But there were no dry turkey sandwiches or turkey meatballs in 1623; Both were inventions of the post-war turkey industry, designed to get people to eat more turkey year-round.
Figures from the US Department of Agriculture show US turkey consumption will drop slightly to 15.4 pounds per person per year in 2021, down from 16 pounds in 2019. But that’s still a huge amount of turkey, more than a pound per person per month. , In contrast, in 1935 the average person in America consumed only 1.7 pounds of turkey a year, and in 1970 it was still only 8 pounds.
Every so often, brave pioneers try to question the dominance of the Thanksgiving turkey, whether on grounds of taste or animal cruelty or “decolonizing” the food. In the 1980s, humorist Calvin Trillin launched his own personal campaign to replace the national Thanksgiving dish. From turkey to spaghetti carbonara. His reasoning was, first, that he loved spaghetti carbonara, and second, that “one of the things I’m thankful for every year is that those people in Plymouth Colony are not my ancestors.”
In his 2009 book “Eating Animals”, author Jonathan Safran Foer argued that gathering around a festive vegetarian meal would be much closer to the true spirit of Thanksgiving, noting the inhumane way most turkeys are raised. Pundits routinely predict that turkey. It is on the verge of losing ground to vegetarian alternatives like Tofurky, a vegetarian option made from tofu and wheat. Tofurky certainly has done pretty well in recent years, with sales up 37% in 2020. Nevertheless, Tofurky’s total market in the US is about $50 million, compared to over $5 billion for Turkey.
I often think that holiday meals are nearly as delicious without the presence of a giant turkey centerpiece. Most of my favorite things at the table are meatless sides: rich, chestnut stuffing; Butter Mashed Potatoes; Sweet, roasted root vegetables.
If the turkey is gone, the part I’ll miss are the leftovers and especially the stock, which I look forward to all year. I put the turkey carcass in my biggest stockpot, add water and maybe some onion slaw, and let it simmer until it’s rich and golden and the whole kitchen is filled with a household fudge. We usually turn it into some kind of noodle soup. As Barbara Kafka writes in her excellent cookbook “Roasting: A Simple Art,” turkey stock is “the best part of the turkey, a luscious home for good egg noodles, just cooked rice, or, if you prefer.” Are alone, sad or happy, a poached egg.” Roast turkey can sometimes be a disappointment, but turkey stock is always a reason to give thanks.