Turkey time is upon us!

As the annual festival of Thanksgiving draws near, Americans are preparing to consume about 46 million turkeys, which amounts to about 21% of the national production of the birds.

Today the Thanksgiving holiday is associated very strongly with the turkey, although historians disagree about whether or not that species of bird actually adorned the first Thanksgiving table. We know that both Native Americans and colonists certainly hunted them and so it seems likely turkey was there in those first thanksgiving meals, along with a number of other foods.

Much credit must be given to Sarah Josepha Hale, who lived from 1778 to 1879 for promoting both Thanksgiving and the turkey.

Hale was the daughter of a Revolutionary War veteran who over time became a poet and later

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