Turkey tradition: Listen to this 1990s MPR interview on the history of the Thanksgiving bird

CATHY WURZER: The star of most Thanksgiving feasts is, of course, the turkey. We're going to take you to the MPR News archives right now from 30 years ago when MPR's Chris Roberts interviewed Karal Ann Marling-- a Minnesota author and scholar of American pop culture and art. She spoke about the history of the holiday bird in our Minnesota Now and Then segment.

KARAL ANN MARLING: We took the wishbone out of the turkey at Thanksgiving, cleaned it all off, wrapped it up in aluminum foil, which was just coming into play for the first time in the American home around 1950. In fact, the first edition of the Betty Crocker picture Cook Book specifically recommends the use of aluminum foil, a modern new technology say that to keep your turkey from burning on Thanksgiving.

Anyhow, you wrap the wishbone up in foil. You tie it up with red ribbons. And you hang it right over your grandma's stove where it will dry out between Thanksgiving and Christmas. And then on Christmas, the oldest person present and the youngest person present play snap the wishbone.

CHRIS ROBERTS: Wow. And not a substitute for mistletoe?

KARAL ANN MARLING: Not at all. It's just an assurance of, first of all, continuity in the family between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We'll all be back together again on Christmas. And it's also, I think, a kind of charming way of assuring that the little one has all sorts of luck and happiness for the rest of the year because, of course, if you're a decent adult, you make sure that the child wins.

CHRIS ROBERTS: Now, are turkeys purely American animals? Or are they yet another transplant? When I look at turkeys, I think, wow, that bird must be a hybrid of like a chicken and an ostrich.

KARAL ANN MARLING: Like that bird is really ugly is what you say. But you didn't want to say that on the radio. The easy answer would be to say that they're an American bird. And that's what Ben Franklin and the founding fathers thought. And that's one reason why turkeys got to be part of American ritual eating.

And it's also true that most food writers think that it was the Aztecs in Mexico that domesticated turkeys for the first time and that the Spanish then brought them back to Europe where they were misidentified they had come from somewhere exotic. Why not Turkey? So which is how they got their funny name.

But then there are all sorts of strange turkey sightings that occur earlier than this could ever have happened. For example, there are scholars who argue that there is a turkey in the Bayeux Tapestries, so that would date the arrival of the turkey in Europe by some devious means at about 1087. So who knows? We do know that by 1524, turkeys were being imported into England and had become a regular part of the English Christmas ritual.

CHRIS ROBERTS: The first American import.

KARAL ANN MARLING: One of the first American imports, yes. The diaries of Thomas Tusser written in 1570 in England say that the turkey was already a part of the common farmer's Christmas fare.

CHRIS ROBERTS: Let's move back across the Atlantic to our country. Ann--

KARAL ANN MARLING: The first turkeys.

CHRIS ROBERTS: Tell us the story of the first turkey at the Plymouth Colony.

KARAL ANN MARLING: Well, nobody knows about that either, except that they've been excavating like crazy to try to find turkey bones so that they can substantiate the fact that it was indeed that bird that was eaten by the colonists and the Indians on the first Thanksgiving.

We do know, however, that Edward Winslow, who was present at the first Thanksgiving in 1621, did write in his diaries that there was much a fowle-- that's with an E on the end-- served along with five deers. And it's reasonable to conclude that turkey was probably one of those fowls since they don't run too fast. And birds of up to 40 pounds were then in a wild state fluttering about the woods.

We do know also that the custom of eating turkey caught on pretty quickly in New England to commemorate that day. One piece of documentation that's often cited is a letter from a Boston school girl to her cousin in the middle of the Revolutionary War in which she bemoans the fact that because of wartime shortages, they're going to have to have different sorts of foods on Thanksgiving than they're accustomed to. And one of the things that's going to be missed is not only roast beef but also turkey.

And it would seem that by about 1800 or so, at least in New England, the turkey was the centerpiece of an enormous feed that I think most of us would die before we would consume. There would be chicken pies. There would be mutton. There would be roasts of beef. There would be giant hams. And the turkey acted as a sort of icon if you will of Americanism or a kind of reminder. It was as much a visual symbol as anything else.

And indeed throughout most of the 19th and early 20th century, the picture of a turkey on a table surrounded by children became a sort of educational symbol that was used to bring immigrants into the American family. I often wondered about that my myself. We see turkeys all over schoolrooms in the United States. And that tradition goes way back and serves to remind us that there are some unique American symbols that hold us together. And that's one of them.

CHRIS ROBERTS: So the turkey has survived the Industrial Revolution. And we're into the 20th century. And what turkey-cooking tips have held up to this day?

KARAL ANN MARLING: Well, there's always the perpetual struggle. And that is, what do you do with the turkey on the day after? We still haven't in America managed to breed a boneless turkey, although I would imagine that that's on its way at any moment.

The most inconvenient thing we have with turkey is that we have a lot of it left over. And none of us any more know what to do with leftovers. We're takeaway cooks. We go and buy things ready-made at the store.

I have two tips. One of them's a favorite family recipe. This is easy. This is not complicated. Dice some potatoes about a cup. Dice some onions and celery about a cup of that combined. Saute in a pan. All right.

Add an equal volume of chopped up turkey left over from your Thanksgiving feast and maybe a half of a green pepper chopped very fine. Let that all simmer for a while. And at the last minute, pour in one cup of heavy cream.

Press that down into the frying pan. And cook it until the bottom starts to scorch. Then underneath, go around with a spatula. And you can take it out in one large piece, which you can then invert on a plate and serve. Grandma's turkey hash. It's excellent.

CHRIS ROBERTS: You're going to need a forklift for that.

KARAL ANN MARLING: It's very good. You then slice it into pieces like a pie and serve. My other alternative is, hey, make soup. You couldn't have a nicer leftover turkey.

CATHY WURZER: That was MPR's Chris Roberts interviewing Karal Ann Marling back on November 27, 1993. I wonder where Karal Ann is nowadays. Well, another holiday tradition for many of us is A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. And it is marking 50 years this week since it first premiered on CBS TV. So, of course, we have to listen to some Vince Guaraldi with the Thanksgiving theme.

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