Thursday

Thanksgiving Turkey Is Original Mexican Food


Yep... you read that right. Enjoy your original Mexican food on Thanksgiving. Turkeys only existed in North America and Mexico until the 1500s. Centuries before the first Europeans ever put a savory piece of Turkey in their mouths Mexicans had domesticated and raised Turkeys for meat. That's right, domesticated turkeys originally came from Mexico. The Spaniards brought domestic turkeys to Europe in the early 1500s. England got them about the same time, and then introduced them into the USA in Jamestown. So while the United States has its own wild turkeys our domestics came from Mexico through Spain and then England. So if you aren't eating wild Turkey tomorrow you are actually eating authentic Mexican food!

That's OK with me... I love Mexico, the Mexican people, and Mexican food, but please don't try to tell me that cornbread dressing came from anywhere but the southern United States, unless of course you would like to make a case for it being the manna from heaven that the Children Of Israel ate in the wilderness. I think there might be some merit to that notion!

But God did give the Turkey something special for the ole USA. The turkey’s head can change colors quickly. The three colors are red, white, and blue. When turkeys get excited their heads turn blue, when they become enraged some say they turn red while others say white. This phenomenon seems to be regulated by blood vessels and muscles moving the blood to or away from the surface. Perhaps that's why Ben Franklin thought the turkey should be our national bird.

A little more trivia. The reason these birds were called turkey is the first explorers thought the Americas were actually Asia. They thought this new bird was actually a cousin to a Turkish bird called a turkey. Strangely the Turkish bird lost the name turkey and the American non-Turkish bird kept the name.

1 comment:

  1. I heard this info on a food channel around Thanksgiving and told my coworkers and no one believed me! I've printed this off to show them I'm not crazy...thanks! I also printed pics of turkeys wearing sombreros.

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