Neatness this week is Pilgrim-ish, Native American-ish, Mexican-ish as we visit with the wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) on this Día de Acción de Gracias. It is fitting to use the Spanish name for Thanksgiving since the story of the wild turkey begins in Mexico much like tacos, mariachi and bacterial bouts of explosive diarrhea. In the early 1500s, Spanish explorers (non-preservers of the neatness in the universe) brought back wild turkeys from the new world and by 1530 Spanish farms were gut deep turkey with cocks. By the time the 1620 gang set sail they carried domesticated turkeys on the Mayflower. And in 1621 when the governor sent out 4 men to hunt for fowl for the meal with the Wampanoag Indians they returned with presumably wild turkeys which were the distant cousins of the ones they brought over from Europe.
Now to the neatness: It makes sense Benny Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national symbol because a wild turkey's bald head can change color in seconds due to changes in emotion. The birds’ heads can be red (fight), white/pink (normal) or blue (excited). 'Merica!!! Adult male turkeys are called toms and females are called hens. Very young birds are poults and adolescents are called jakes. And the one in my oven right now is called Sweet Caroline.
Finally we return to Mexico where the turkey is believed to have been sacred in ancient cultures. The Mayans, Aztecs and Toltecs referred to the turkey as the ‘Great Xolotl’, viewing them as ‘jeweled birds.' So on this Thanksgiving when you are doing neat things with your family, suck down a Bud Light Lime and reminisce of a time when us Americans were refugees in a strange land and sacred jeweled birds flew free and wide in the eastern skies like the bald eagle of yore.
