Turkey

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 2010-27
Originally uploaded by Inkyhack

In all seriousness: if you want to learn about an amazing chapter in American food history, research the role that turkey has placed in American cuisine. Up until the 1950s, turkey was a rarity. It was only served as an elite item during the Thanksgiving holiday.

Then a few things happened - the frozen food industry was discovered (TV dinners) and they found that turkey was the easiest meat to freeze for long-term storage; and the turkey industry moved West to California, where the climate was perfect for turkey breeding year-round. That meant that turkey could be supplied to store shelves any time of the year, not just during that one time of the year when the turkeys fattened up.

The turkey industry also unified and started a national campaign to get turkey in our diet. Turkey sandwiches and turkey lunch meats started to appear. In fact, the campaign was so pervasive, that the remake of "A Christmas Carol" made in the late '50s (the great version staring Alison Sims), the ending was changed. Scrooge no longer asked for the biggest "goose" in the window, as the original book states, but instead asks for the biggest "turkey." Turkey, of course, was completely foreign to English folks at the time of the novel (1843), but the mention in the film in the 1950s went largely unnoticed, thanks to the great turkey marketing campaign. This would, of course, help further propagate (in a very Orwellian manner imho) that turkey not only was a "traditional" meal for Christmas, but "always was a traditional meal" for Christmas.

Then, when American started to become health concious in the early 90's, more was done. Turkey was sold as the "healthy meat" due to its naturally low-fat content. Turkey hot dogs and turkey pepperoni appeared, along with other turkey substitutes.

Today, it's not unusual for us to have turkey bacon, turkey sausage, and even turkey chili all in the same day without thinking twice about it. And this food stand - found at the 2010 Hardley Strictly Bluegrass Festival - further demonstrates how far the turkey industry has gone in the past 60 years.

But seriously, there's a lot more to the story. I urge all food-o-philes and marketing students to do the research.