Turkey Dinner - Tradition or just too lazy to find something different ?

I know there are some exceptions, but let’s be real here ― very few of us would eat turkey of our own volition. At Christmas, those who still buy the whole bird - over cook it until it's dry and tasteless - as most of us only cook turkey once a year, and then have this big bird hogging the fridge space all while the fridge is crammed with trifle, veg, cold meats and cheeses, salad stuff and enough milk and cream to last at least 3 - 5 days - so you do not have to go out shopping over the Festive few days.

56% of us opt for the festive poultry at our Christmas table, regardless of whether we enjoy it the rest of the year.

But why ― especially considering Christmas dinners in the Middle Ages used to feature a pickled boar’s head in place of the American bird?

(By the way, there was even a song written for the boar’s head ― it was sung as the platter was brought in, and went:

'The boar’s head in hands I bring, with garlands gay & birds singing !I pray you all to help me sing, who are at this banquet !

The boar’s head I understand, Is chief service in all this land ! Wheresoever it may be found, it is served with mustard!...).

So where did the turkey come in?

The fowl didn’t reach Europe ’til the 1500s, the Museum of English Rural Life writes.

And while a 1573 poem from Tudor farmer Thomas Tusser mentioned turkeys in a list of possible Christmas mains ― “Biefe, mutton, & pork, shred pyes of the best/ pig, veale, goose & capon, & Turkey weldrest” ― they weren’t available to most people.

As the BBC states, the food became a festive hit almost immediately among the English nobility because it was an exotic status symbol (like peacocks) and also because they reached full size in winter.

King Henry VIII might have eaten one for his Crimbo dinner, they add.

Still, though the food was aspirational and often associated with an upper-class Christmas, it would take centuries for the food to become a must-have meat.

What cemented the turkey Christmas dinner?

Dickens’ reference to the poultry in A Christmas Carol didn’t hurt (when his own festive bird went missing, his tour manager got an urgent letter reading “WHERE IS THAT TURKEY? IT HAS NOT ARRIVED!!!!!!!!!!!”).

And the Museum of English Rural Life added: “It was in 1851 that turkey first took centre stage at the royals’ dinner table, which began a trend we still enjoy today.”

Still, the B BC says it took until the ’20s, when mechanised farming and different breeding and feeding techniques were introduced, that most of us.

As we already now know, the whole Turkey Dinner thing was stolen as an idea by early settlers in the USA ( Plymouth Rock ) and was a staple diet of Native Americans and NOT the white man.

Most of our Christmas decorations from the Christmas Tree to the Yule Tide Log was German in tradition and assimilated into the UK culture through our German Royalty , but is NOT traditional originally to the UK at all, but Germany.

Father Christmas, well we have all looked this one up and the common belief was that he was Turkish - a monk/ priest who helped the poor with food - and while there are many ' so called historic evidence' - most are simply myth and make believe and passed down through centuries and we think them true.

Tradition is only something you keep - boringly - repeating over and over until someone says - ' Well it's tradition, isn't it ?' - and no it is not.

If you are having Turkey this Christmas, may I suggest you serve it with a boiled ham, as the ham has a sweet salty taste whereas the turkey lacks flavour and one compliments the other very well.

John Bellamy