Why Do We Eat Turkeys On Thanksgiving?

Although turkey is the main decoration of the Thanksgiving dinner table, but it’s not a religious thing like you must eat the bird’s meat on this day.

There have been some stories in the United States for a long time that how eating turkey become a tradition-like thing.

Below, I will tell you one most popular story on it. This will help you to get a better idea of this interesting concept.

So, let’s explore it.

Why Do We Eat Turkeys On Thanksgiving? – The Story

Early in the harvest festivals of Europe, people usually used the meats of goose, duck, chicken, deer, goats, and some other animals and birds.

Here especially, the goose was their favorite meat item.

But when many Europeans started migrating and settling permanently in the new world, they faced a problem.

The problem was the lack of geese. At that time, there were not enough geese available in the jungles of the United States.

Early 17th century, when they started celebrating harvest festivals they had to find substitutes for the bird.

In the new world, the bird mostly found in the jungles were wild turkeys.

We don’t have any exact date and year, but it is said that with the flow of time, as a substitute for geese, the turkey became the main decoration of the European settlers’ harvest festival dinner plate.

In 1621, the first ever Thanksgiving was celebrated by 53 English Pilgrims of Plymouth and 90 Wampanoag Native Americans. But still, it can’t be said, did they eat the bird’s meat or not?

However, since the 19th century, the turkey has become an immensely popular meat item for Thanksgiving dinner and also the main symbol of it.

Did You Know?

In the United States, there is an interesting tradition called “Pardoning Turkey”.

A day before Thanksgiving, the United States President pardons the life of a turkey by not letting it end up its life on anyone’s dinner table.

The tradition first started in the days of John F Kennedy.