Talking Turkey

Thanksgiving's Centerpiece Has a Storied Tradition

The first Thanksgiving turkey I ever cooked was in 2020. Setting aside my culinary angst and tackling the big bird seemed in line with the slower paced vibe imposed by Covid. It was, at the risk of immodesty, delicious.

The next year, flush with the previous year’s triumph, I mistook a brining bag for an oven roasting bag and melted plastic over the entire thing. Not so delicious. Sparing you the picture.

Culturally, turkeys get the short end of the stick and not because so many of them end up on our holiday dinner tables. Though you don’t hear the slang much anymore, calling someone a turkey means they are slow-witted or of little account.

Legendary columnist Walter Winchell (1897 - 1972) is credited with bringing “turkey” into pop culture parlance. In 1927, he told readers of Vanity Fair that a turkey “is a third rate production.”¹

Walter Winchell in 1944. Library of Congress.

This week, President Biden’s pardoning of two Minnesota bred turkeys, cheekily named Liberty and Bell, is one of the rare news headlines that prompted a smile. In preparation for their close-up, the pair were put up at the posh Willard Hotel, steps from the White House, where their pardoned predecessors have roosted for over a decade.²

Every year since 1947, the National Turkey Federation raises a turkey, or two, to be the standard bearers at the White House ceremony that officially opens the winter holiday season. If the birds seem uncommonly chill, chalk it up to grooming. From hatchlings, they are lavished with special care to acclimate them to crowds and human handling.³

Legend holds that the first White House turkey pardoning took place in 1863 during the Lincoln presidency when Lincoln’s then ten-year-old son, Tad, begged his papa to spare a turkey named Jack from becoming the centerpiece of Christmas supper. Not recorded until two years later, in an 1865 dispatch by White House reporter Noah Brooks, like George Washington chopping down the cherry tree, the feel-good story, which closely followed the end of America’s Civil War, may be more folklore than fact.⁴

By 1914, poultry gifts to the president had become a patriotic way to open the winter holiday season (as well as curry political favor). As with the dinner table, presentation counted. In 1921, an American Legion post decorated the crate of a turkey en route to then President and Mrs. Wilson to look like a miniature White House. A Harding Girls Club in Chicago outfitted a turkey as a flying ace, complete with goggles. In 1925, First Lady Grace Coolidge accepted a turkey from a Vermont Girl Scout. The gifts were good cheer for everyone but the birds, who were eaten, not spared.⁵

In 1947, the National Turkey Foundation took over as the official turkey supplier to the first family. Because the takeover coincided with the Truman presidency, President Truman is often incorrectly credited as the first president to officially pardon the turkey. In fact, the former Missouri farmer did the very opposite, remarking in 1948 that the two turkeys he’d been gifted would “come in handy” for Christmas dinner.⁶

According to the White House Historical Association, John F. Kennedy was the first president to pardon the turkey, though JFK’s spare speech, “Let’s keep him going,” reads more like a lukewarm reprieve.⁷

Dispatching the presidential turkey to a farm became the norm under President Ronald Reagan. The turkey ceremony also became a source of satire and humor for reporters⁸ as per the Winchell quote above.

It wasn’t until 1989, during the presidency of George H.W. Bush, that presidential turkey pardoning solidified into an annual tradition. With picketing animal rights activists all but breathing down his back, Bush proclaimed: "Let me assure you, and this fine tom turkey, that he will not end up on anyone’s dinner table, not this guy. He’s granted a presidential pardon as of right now."⁹

This year’s media stars, Liberty and Bell are likewise headed home where they will live out their lives at the University of Minnesota College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resources Sciences.¹⁰

I last wrote about turkeys in my post on McSorley’s Old Ale House where legend holds the bar gave out free turkey dinners to soldiers shipping out to fight in the First World War. If you missed that post, and the accompanying Instagram reel, you can catch up here.

Whether your holiday bird is turkey or tofu, have a safe and peaceful Thanksgiving!

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IRISH EYES, the launch of my American Songbook series, releases December 7. You can preorder your copy on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org and wherever books are sold.

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1. https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/walter-winchell-biographical-timeline/15619/#podcastsubscribe

2. https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/20/politics/biden-turkey-pardon/index.html

3. https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/11/turkey.html

4. https://www.whitehousehistory.org/pardoning-the-thanksgiving-turkey

5. Ibid

6. https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/20/politics/biden-turkey-pardon/index.html

7. https://www.whitehousehistory.org/pardoning-the-thanksgiving-turkey

8. Ibid

9. Ibid

10. https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/20/politics/biden-turkey-pardon/index.html