TURKEY

Chances are, you can mention just about any holiday and a traditional food comes immediately to mind. Easter eggs, Christmas cookies, Hanukkah latkes, Fourth of July barbecues, Kentucky Derby mint juleps and Valentine bonbons are but a few of the many examples. Even so, it`s the day that gets the headline.

Thanksgiving is another story. This celebration is so tied to a particular food that some people refer to it as Turkey Day.

Benjamin Franklin would be pleased. When the United States was just a fledgling itself, Franklin wrote in a letter to his daughter, Rachel Ashe, that he thought the turkey should be selected as our national bird. The good doctor was outvoted, and Bald Eagle won the place of honor on the U.S. national seal, but every year at Thanksgiving time, turkeys rule.

Contrary to popular belief, turkeys are not documented to have had center stage at the original Thanksgiving dinner in 1621. Having finally brought in a successful harvest, the Pilgrims decided to celebrate their good fortune with a feast. The local Wampanoags had been essentially responsible for the colony`s survival, teaching the Pilgrims how to cultivate the region`s unfamiliar foods, and the tribe was invited to participate. But when Chief Massasoit arrived with 90 warriors, the colonists were horrified. Feeding so many meant they would have to dip into the precious stores they had set aside for winter.

They need not have worried. Noting his hosts` concern, Massasoit sent a band of hunters into the forest and the men returned with ``many fowle and five deere.`` Thoughthe woods probably were home to many wild turkeys, venison is the only meat we can be absolutely sure was served at the celebrated event.

How the turkey came to be the quintessential Thanksgiving menu headliner is a matter of conjecture. The holiday was declared official by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, and in 1896 the first edition of Fannie Farmer`s ``Boston Cooking-School Cook Book`` recommended that the day be celebrated with foods that symbolically connoted ``Pilgrim.`` There is no question, however, about the turkey`s appropriateness for the feast. All the original breeding stock for the cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry available on today`s market were brought here by Old World settlers. Only turkey is native to the New World.

Like corn, turkeys were domesticated by the Aztecs. Even in that society, the turkey was normally reserved for special feasts when it was braised in a sauce made from chocolate, tomatoes and chiles, three other foods that are indigenous to the Americas. The dish is still served on feast days in modern Mexico, where it is known as (ITAL) mole poblano de guajolote (uñTAL).

No one is quite sure how turkeys arrived in Europe. Some say they were carried to Spain by Cortez in 1519; others claim that Amerigo Vespucci introduced them to the Portuguese in 1504. Who gets the credit is immaterial. The important thing to note is that Europe went wild for the bird, and that it quickly became the preferred fowl at every feasting occasion.

How the turkey got its name is equally obscure. The most plausible suggestion is that it was brought to England soon after its arrival in Europe by men known as ``Turkey merchants`` because they traded between the western port of Seville in Spain and other ports in the eastern Mediterranean. British buyers may have been told that the Aztec name for the bird was (ITAL) uexolotl (uñTAL), but it was certainly easier to simply call it the ``turkie-bird.`` The English had, in fact, called large edible unfamiliar birds ``turkey-something-or-other`` since the Middle Ages when trade was initiated with the Turks. A Devonshire coat of arms dating from the 14th century (long before the Americas were discovered) showed ``three turkey-cocks in their pride proper.`` Artistry then was far from picture perfect, so the birds may easily have been peacocks, which were the ultimate feasting fare of the time.

Other European countries at least got the turkey`s native hemisphere right. Since the Americas had been discovered while Columbus was searching for a new spice route to India, everyone then referred to the Americas as the West Indies and dubbed the native population ``Indians.`` In Italy, the turkey was called (ITAL) galle d`India (uñTAL) (Indian chicken), and in Germany it was known as (ITAL) indianische Henn (uñTAL) (Indian hen). In France, the bird was called (ITAL) coq d`Inde (uñTAL) (Indian cock), and even today it is known as (ITAL) dinde (uñTAL), a corrupted form of the phrase. Interestingly, in India itself the turkey is called (ITAL) peru (uñTAL). Even the turkey`s zoological classification, (ITAL) gallopavo (uñTAL), is a misnomer -- it means chicken peacock.

In any event, Europe was first to fall in love with the turkey. In 1560, 150 birds were roasted for a wedding in Germany; the French monarch, Charles IX, ate turkey at a state dinner in 1570; and the English preferred turkey over roast beef or roast goose at Christmas as early as 1585, 35 years before the first American Thanksgiving. In his 1825 edition of ``The Physiology of Taste,`` the famous gastronome, Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, wrote: ``The turkey is surely one of the noblest gifts which the Old World has received from the New.``

American pioneers did hunt the wild turkey, as stalwart hunters still do, but the tasty roast bird that we enjoy every year cannot claim direct descendency from our native wild fowl. Europe was also first to commercially breed turkeys. By the early 17th century flocks of the birds were being driven from France to Spain much as geese had been herded since the days of the Roman Empire. In fact, the first domesticated American turkeys were bred from imported European stock. The Black Norfolk and White Holland breeds came to the colonies from England, and the first American hybrid -- the Mammoth Bronze -- was bred from birds with European heritage.

It`s no wonder that turkeys are a favorite fowl. Roasted they are sublime, and nutritionally they are hard to beat. A 3-ounce serving contains less calories, less fat, less cholesterol, less sodium, an equal or more protein than a similarly sized portion of pork, beef or even lamb, and it`s easier to digest as well. Recent studies have shown that turkey might also be the ultimate mood elevator as it provides a high level of the amino acid tryptophan, a neurotransmitter that stimulates the brain to feel relaxed.

Perhaps that`s why Americans are so fond of the bird. More than 300 million turkeys grace our holiday tables every year. The National Turkey Federation estimates that 45 million are eaten at Thanksgiving, 23 million at Christmas and 19 million at Easter. Of course, holidays are not the only occasions when a turkey feast fits the bill. When astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin celebrated their first meal on the moon, their foil food packets contained roasted turkey and all the trimmings. You might say it was a small step for mankind and a giant step for the Thanksgiving gobbler.

(Edythe Preet is a freelance writer living in Australia.)

(c) 2000, Edythe Preet. Distributed by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate.

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Author: Edythe Preet