How ‘turkey’ made its way to Thanksgiving tables and our lexicon : NPR

Turkey gets a kind of hard break in the English language.

Talking turkey requires serious honesty and speaking the hard truth. Often, a hard way to give up something completely and suddenly is to act cold. Being a Turkey is a crude satire on flops in movies and theaters, as well as obnoxious, failure-prone people.

Still, in the culinary world, turkey reigns supreme, especially during November. According to the National Turkey Federation, Americans are expected to eat about 30 million of them on Thanksgiving Day this year. It’s a fitting legacy for a bird that has been a part of holiday meals ever since it was first brought across the Atlantic to Europe by colonists.

But historians and etymologists say that for all its cultural ubiquity, much of Turkey’s early history is shrouded in uncertainty. This is especially true of how the bird got its name.

“‘Turkish’ is a very confusing, confusing name,” says Anatoly Lieberman, a linguist and etymologist at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

So in this week’s installment of “Word of the Week,” we trace the origins of that confusing name — all the way back to pre-Columbian Mexico.

case of mistaken identity

The Thanksgiving turkey we know today, meleagris gallopavoFood historian Andrew F. According to Smith’s book, it was domesticated in the Americas centuries before the arrival of Europeans. The Turkey: An American Story. Smith writes that they were found in what is now Mexico and the American southwest, although the exact details of who domesticated the birds and when are not exactly clear. And, due to fairly poor record-keeping, it is not even clear which European explorer can be given credit for bringing the turkey back home with him.

But by the 1520s, the birds began to be raised in Spain and served at the dinner tables of the upper class, Smith writes. Over the decades, farmers across the continent also began raising them.

However, according to lexicographer Erin McKean, from there the American bird became a victim of misidentification. prior to meleagris gallopavoAfter the arrival of the Europeans, Europeans already had a bird they called a turkey: the African guinea fowl. McCain says both game birds look similar and were originally ending up on people’s dinner tables in the same way.

“I’m sure they’ll look even more alike when they’re de-winged, roasted, and put on a plate,” she says.

As a result, meleagris gallopavo Stuck with the name “Turkey” too.

But American turkeys began to eclipse the popularity of their African lookalikes, writes Smith. And they began to appear in historical documents; For example, in Venice in the 1550s, they were subject to sumptuary laws that controlled which members of society had access to particular luxuries, McKeown says.

“So at that time only a few people were allowed to eat turkey,” she says.

However, one thing that is not clear in historical documents is how the term “Turkey” first came to be applied to the Guinea Fowls. Smith writes that Europeans often attached the word “turkey” to foreign and strange items, such as “turkey corn” from the Americas. McCain says the name is believed to come from guinea fowl brought to Europe through the Turkish region by traders.

But the origin of the word is not a definite fact, she says. “I’m not sure we’ll ever know.”

For his part, Lieberman says it is a myth that this bird has anything to do with the country of Türkiye.

He says, “Europeans didn’t know anything about[the turkey’s]origins and they invented all kinds of names. They weren’t sure where this bird came from and they traced its origins to all kinds of foreign lands.”

In this sense, the bird is in good company: Lieberman says the origins of most bird names are mysterious. He says, “Some are completely imaginary and some are the product of delusion.”

Back in America, and in the English dictionary

Smith writes that over the decades, the British became particularly fond of turkey, which became a central part of celebrations such as Christmas. turkeySo when English colonists came to North America in the early 17th century and built settlements like Jamestown, they also brought their beloved pet turkey with them,

the rest is history. Smith writes, over the next two centuries, colonists’ thanksgiving ceremonies for good harvests and military victories became tradition. And by the time President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863, turkey was a mainstay of those meals.

Since then, turkeys have remained on the Thanksgiving table – and in our parlance, though they continue to evolve.

Take “cold turkey” for example. Now, this phrase is often associated with quitting an addiction — but according to Dave Wilton, editor of WordOrigins.org, that wasn’t the case when the first uses of the idiom began to surface in the late 19th century. It simply meant that something was done quickly, he says in reference to the fact that cold turkey is a dish that requires no preparation.

He says the meaning of “talking turkey” has also evolved from being “social” and “spontaneous” in the early 19th century to talking clearly and articulately around the beginning of the 20th century.

He says that calling someone a “turkey” as an insult comes from dramatic language. From the late 1800s onwards, second-rate actors were deemed “Turkish actors”. It has also come to describe box office failures.

Why all the negativity? McCain has a theory: “It’s an ugly bird that struts like a peacock without beautiful feathers to show off.” (Ouch.)

But it’s a term that has staying power, despite the fact that it’s probably a misnomer in the first place.

“One thing we can’t ignore is that turkey is a pretty fun word to say,” says McCain.

At least, it’s more attractive than that Meleagris gallopavo.