It is not a good time of the year to be a turkey. From Thanksgiving to Christmas, more turkey is consumed than any other time of the year. The demand for turkeys this year has seen an increase in the price of the bird. According to the web site AboutFood.com, each American will eat an average of 20 pounds of turkey this year, most of it being consumed between Thanksgiving Day and Christmas.

Why do we eat so much turkey this time of year? It’s traditional fare. You know, the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag tribe sat down to a meal of turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie in 1621. Everyone knows that… except none of those traditional items were on the menu at the first Thanksgiving. It appears that the turkey was really not on anyone’s plate for a Thanksgiving meal until about 200 years after the Pilgrims first took off their Capotain hats to say grace at that first meal. Farmers in the 19^th century were eating domestic turkey in the fall of the year when they had reached full maturity. Turkey chicks born in the spring were kept on the farm to eat insects and grubs that would damage crops. Once the harvest was in, the gig was up for the turkey! Plus, they were a big bird, larger than chickens and geese, and one bird could feed quite a large family. When Thanksgiving was declared a national holiday in 1863, the last Thursday of November was chosen for the event. Guess who was ready for the ax?

But the Turkey Day tradition was not fully into its Butterball craze until about 80 years later. That’s when artist Norman Rockwell’s painting "Freedom from Want” was published on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post in March 1943. The painting shows a family waiting on the centerpiece of the meal to be served – you guessed it, a very large turkey! Some very smart marketing person in the poultry industry seized upon the popularity of this painting and began to call it "Thanksgiving.” This visual became the standard for what a family should be eating on Thanksgiving Day. Hybrid domestic turkey farms became big business. Turkeys were being raised for their size and a greater proportion of white meat. The "traditional Thanksgiving bird” was really a marketing ploy that helped sell the bird and corner the holiday meat market.