Turkey and Other Poultry

The turkey has been a part of American culture since before the time of Columbus. Actually, this clumsy-looking bird—which some wrongly characterize as dumb—was roaming North America more than eight million years before man made his appearance. Domesticated turkeys were part of the diet of Southwestern Indians at the same time that Julius Caesar ruled Rome.

The value of the turkey as food was discovered immediately by Columbus and Cortez, who gathered up the birds and shipped them back to Europe. By 1530, turkeys were already being raised domestically in France, Italy, and England. Actually the first turkeys raised by the American colonists were not from the native populations, but rather from domesticated stock brought back from Europe. The European stock was crossed with the native wild turkey, and the resultant offspring were the forefathers and mothers of the Bronze turkey, the variety that became the basis of the American turkey industry.