Presenting the Turkey. The Fabulous Story of a Flamboyant and Flavourful Bird

Benjamin Franklin had wanted the turkey to sit on America's seal, but instead it ended up sitting on our Thanksgiving dinner table. That part of the turkey's history most Americans know. Most don't know that centuries earlier the turkey had enjoyed a period of fame and glory on the other side of the Atlantic. The first American turkeys to strut on European soil had been sent from the West Indies to Seville in 1511 by order of King Ferdinand of Spain. Renaissance Europeans were both ecstatic and apprehensive about this bizarre creature. Initially they considered it a costly curiosity, an exotic gift for princes and popes. Eventually the turkey replaced the peacock as the most spectacular dish at grand banquets. Though diners loved the turkey, farmers deplored it, complaining that it had the appetite of a packhorse and less wits and stamina than the common chicken. Presenting the Turkey traces the bird's reception and impact in the Old World, drawing on the accounts of such contemporary authorities as cooks, farmers, courtiers, and naturalists. It examines how the turkey's outrageous behaviour inspired colourful expressions to describe aspects of human behaviour, and presents over sixty works of art that reveal the changing role that the turkey has played in our lives from the Renaissance to the present. The book concludes with poems, fables, and selections of prose that turn the spotlight on the turkey.