With the Thanksgiving holiday just around the corner, its time to talk turkey.
The first Thanksgiving dinner was only eaten with spoons and knives. Eating with a fork in one thing that most people took for granted, but imagine eating your turkey with a spoon instead of a fork. . The reason was the fork was not in the U.S. in 1670 is because it was introduced 10 years later by Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts. It was not brought into popular use until the 18th century.
Another interesting fact about Thanksgiving. The biggest turkey on record weighed 75 pounds. It was raised in Utah in 1916 and the largest turkey farm is not in America where the turkey originated but in England. The farm had 5.4 million gobblers.
No one knows how many turkeys were eaten at the first Thanksgiving in 1621 but we do know that about 140 Pilgrims and Indians feasted for three days.
The turkey probably owes its name to Christopher Columbus. On landing in the New World, he believed he had reached India and thought the bird was a peacock. He named it Tuka, which means peacock in India. The turkey is actually a type of pheasant.