Turkey is eaten on Thanksgiving Day in the United States, and influenced by the United States, Canada's Thanksgiving Day has also begun to eat turkey, turkey invites whoever, why become the iconic food of Thanksgiving? To understand this question, we need to first understand the turkey this animal.
2. Turkey, also known as spit-roasted chicken, native to the United States and Mexico, is unique to the Americas species, his head is 3-4 times larger than the domestic chicken, body length of about 1 meter, wingspan of 1.2 m-1.4 m, weight 2.5-10.8 kg, feathers from cream to brownish gray to black brown-black and so on, the wild turkey was trained to domestic turkey time is very early, about 5,000 years BC has been domesticated into domestic turkeys. has been domesticated into domestic turkey, first domesticated in Mexico completed, with the discovery of the American continent, only slowly introduced to Europe.
Turkeys are docile and slow moving, plus the meat is tender and rich in protein, so it became a very good poultry for the Native Americans to supplement protein for the Native Americans, so it also got a wide range of farmed, and the turkey has become the iconic Thanksgiving Day food from the origins of Thanksgiving Day to begin to say.
In 1620, a group of Puritans, about 102 people, by the compulsion of the London Company at the time, but also for future generations to find a clean slate, so they decided to emigrate to the Americas, the establishment of the Puritan nation, which is the origin of the United States of America country, the 102 people on the Mayflower crossed the ocean, after 66 days to reach the Americas, in the journey only 1 person died, and a baby was born, meaning the number of people who arrived was still 102, a miracle for the time.
They arrived at the Plymouth Colony, surveyed and named by Capt. John Smith, today's Plymouth, Massachusetts.
3. Times were not easy for these 102 men upon their arrival, it was winter and the lack of fresh fruits and vegetables led to an epidemic of scurvy, which continued to kill people, and they were harassed and attacked by the local Indians. By the time spring came, only about 50 people had survived.
The next spring, these English Puritans rushed to sow, but also with the local Indians reached an alliance, peace ****, mutual alliance, the Indians taught these Puritans planting corn, breeding turkeys, etc., in the help of the Indians, this group of Puritans slowly stabilized the foot, in the fall, hunting a lot of birds of prey, turkeys and deer. On the day of the harvest celebration, the European newcomers invited the Indians over to join them in thanking God for their gifts. The first Thanksgiving that the European newcomers celebrated with the Indians extended over three days. Through the efforts of the first generation of settlers and the Grand Chief, peace and friendship between the European settlers and the Indian tribes continued for half a century.
4. In this way, this form of thanksgiving slowly passed down, and the turkey as a symbol of Indian assistance, but also God's gift, and gradually become a Thanksgiving Day must eat food, but a long period of time, the United States of America's Thanksgiving Day does not have a fixed date, in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln first declared that this day is a federal Thanksgiving Day, but due to the Civil War, there are still a lot of people against the It was not until the 1870s that Thanksgiving became a national holiday in the U.S. On December 26, 1941, President Roosevelt Jr. signed a congressional resolution officially changing the date of Thanksgiving from the last Thursday of November to the fourth Thursday of November, which gave the U.S. Thanksgiving Day a fixed date. The tradition of eating turkey has been passed down with Thanksgiving and has become an iconic Thanksgiving food.
Thanksgiving in Canada is a little earlier than in the United States, Canada's first official Thanksgiving Day is scheduled for October 14, 1872, this Thanksgiving Day is to celebrate the recovery of George V from illness, since then Canada's Thanksgiving Day is generally the first Monday of October, after the end of World War I, Remembrance Day for the fallen and Thanksgiving Day are often held in the same week. To avoid a conflict between the two holidays, the Canadian Parliament adjusted the date of Thanksgiving to the second Monday in October in 1957, a date that remains to this day. Initially, Thanksgiving in Canada was only for feasting, after the outbreak of the American Revolution, the American royalists came to Canada and introduced the American element of Thanksgiving is in fact mainly turkey into Canada, and since then turkey has also become the iconic food of Thanksgiving in Canada.
And for turkey, Americans now also have special feelings, turkey feed the new immigrants who initially came to the American continent, and every Thanksgiving Day to eat turkey, the United States for the turkey is also thankful, but also slowly have the tradition of presidential pardons turkeys, the U.S. President every year on Thanksgiving Day, "pardons" a to The President of the United States will "pardon" one or two turkeys every year on Thanksgiving Day, and these turkeys will be kept until they die of old age and will never be slaughtered.
As for how this tradition came about, there is still no conclusive answer, some people say that Kennedy pardoned a turkey before he was assassinated, others say that Lincoln's son begged Lincoln not to slaughter a turkey, and some people say that President Harry Truman once released a turkey, all these three sayings, and ultimately can not be determined in the end is to start which president. But the one that has been definitively established is Bush Sr.
On Thanksgiving Day 1989, Bush Sr. received a turkey as a Thanksgiving gift, but he wasn't going to slaughter it, saying publicly and humorously in the White House Rose Garden, "It has now been pardoned by the president and has been allowed to live out the rest of its life on a farm near here." So the turkey was sent to a farm in Herndon, Virginia, and every U.S. president since then has pardoned a turkey on Thanksgiving Day, making it a Thanksgiving Day tradition of presidential pardons for turkeys.