The Turkey: AN AMERICAN STORY

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The Turkey y—and the e also discussed. y’s ed k is ical oss n making hes to salmagundi, key ned oduce a familiar ys. h iter nal hool in Manhattan. luding ica eanut, and is coauthor of ood ood hief of the yclopedia on ica ica m n of Culinary hed at his m d (ca. 1909) in the author’s n. “I’ve met a lot of turkeys in my life, but it wasn’t until I read Andy Smith’s book that I finally began to understand them.” — BURT WOLF, public television journalist The Turkey C U L I N A RY H I S T O RY / C O O K I NG “Andy Smith tells us how Meleagris gallopavo—turkey to you—traveled from the New World to the Old after Columbus’s voyages of discovery, got its name, was cooked in sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe, supplanted the goose in England on festive tables, went wild in America until it disappeared, and finally ended up on the American table especially at Thanksgiving. Along the way, he demolishes a few popular assumptions, fills us in on the development of the modern popular breeds, and traces the progression of preparing turkeys for sale from the ‘New York Style’ (defeathered but whole) to the more recent ‘ready to cook.’ We learn about the unexpected connection between turkeys and TV dinners, how we came to talk turkey, and why we make wishes on wishbones. Andy details the reestablishment of wild stocks and heritage breeds and then piles up recipes, mostly historic ones, for cooking turkey. Here are answers to all the turkey questions you ever had, and some you didn’t.” — SANDRA OLIVER, publisher/editor of Food History News “The Turkey pulls together an impressive array of historical sources into an engaging, in-depth survey of the natural, culinary, and ‘social’ history of the turkey in the United States.” — KATHLEEN CURTIN, author of Giving Thanks: Thanksgiving Recipes and History from Pilgrims to Pumpkin Pie A volume in The Food Series University of Illinois Press Urbana and Chicago www.press.uillinois.edu isbn 0–252–03163–6 ,!7IA2F2-adbgdc!:t;K;k;K;k ...