Celestial Turkey
Many food writers declare a club sandwich the barometer that measures a hotel’s room service quality. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve done out-of-town fundraising dinners where after working for hours to plate multiple high dollar courses and having a couple of drinks, I’ve taken an Uber back to the hotel before realizing that I hadn’t eaten all day. Being in a strange city, not knowing where to get late-night eats that are better than fast food, I’ve called down for the old, reliable club. Excuse the 1980s dinner cook in me while I ascend my soapbox. I vehemently posit that a “Club” sandwich is shorthand for the “Clubhouse” sandwich and is in no way an acronym for “Chicken and Lettuce Under Bacon,” as the sandwich revisionist history lobby would have you believe. I now descend the soapbox and return to the point. While ranging between not-really-great and just-plain-depressing, the turkey is almost always the deciding factor in which direction the needle swings on the sandwich’s quality. Dry or moist, seasoned or not, sliced with care or hacked to bits; these are factors that sway my decision.
But back to the turkey. For the most part, we treat turkey like shit. For some reason, whether it be for the table or sandwiches, Americans stick to how we have prepared turkeys since they first appeared on the Thanksgiving table. The embodiment of Puritan dourness that permeated every aspect of ultra-conservative Old Protestant life is mirrored in our treatment of turkey. Big bird meets sparse seasoning, sometimes equally flavorless stuffing, and then subjected to the oven at questionable temperature ranges. Just Google, “Best turkey recipe ever,” and prepare yourself to plumb the depths of mundane depravity if you don’t want to believe me.
That bland sadness is a miserable legacy for turkeys; for once, they were gods.
Mesoamerican cultures celebrated the turkey, and those turkeys were the wellspring that gave us every domestic turkey that we know today. Without getting into specific breeds, geography, and speculations on economies that would explain how they might have traveled across regions, let’s talk (holy) turkey.
Archaeological digs at El Mirador, the Guatemalan site considered by some to be the cradle of Mayan civilization, have revealed domesticated turkey remains that date between 1500 and 300 BC. If accurate, that makes them the second oldest domestic animal in the world, in line only behind dogs. At this point, you’re probably asking, “Cool, Mayans ate turkey, too. So what?”
By studying iconography and cryptography, many scientists conclude that turkeys probably were not a food supply. The dominant species was far more colorful than today’s domestic turkeys, with a bald, warty, blue head and vibrant plumage. Turkeys were kept as pets by the wealthy elite, and their colorful feathers used for adornment in elaborate garb and headwear. Rather than being livestock, they lived a life of leisure up until they didn’t. As evidenced by their bones’ location in the city’s ceremonial areas, many turkeys met their end by being ceremonially sacrificed. There is no evidence of the bones; therefore, the birds, being cooked and my statement of a good life stands.
Aztecs included Chalchiuhtotolin (Jade Turkey, in Nahuatl) in their pantheon. Being a Jade Turkey was just a part-time job. Chalchiuhtotolin was the animal form (Nagual) of the shape-shifting deity, Tezcatlipoca, who, in turn, was the arch-nemesis of Top-God Quetzalcoatl. Being a good nemesis, Tezcatlipoca played smasher and destroyer to Quetzalcoatl’s creator, according to origin legends. When not otherwise occupied with the business of tangible destruction, Tezcatlipoca would occasionally shift into Chalchiuhtotolin, the bringer of plague and disease, visiting despair and pestilence upon humans by the dark of night. I can’t really think of a better form to take than that of a giant, angry, blue turkey for such a task. Chalchiuhotolin wielded such fear and power that they even reigned over a week of the Aztec calendar. Bear in mind that the Aztec week was thirteen days, instead of the contemporary seven. So, you know, take that, sharks.
Ultimately, Europeans came. Doing what Europeans were prone to do at that time, they murdered, they enslaved, they destroyed entire civilizations, and they ate the sacred animals. Along with gold and spices, Spanish invaders exported turkeys to the Old World, where they took hold in kitchens of the wealthy as a cheap substitute for peacock meat. Yes, you did read that correctly, peacock once featured prominently on the tables of celebratory feasts of European upper crust. But if the strange, blue, bird was cheaper and just as colorful, why not use it, instead? After spreading from Spain to Italy and France, turkeys eventually made their way north to England. Coming full circle, selectively bred, toned-down turkeys then found their way back across the Atlantic, and the domestic turkey that we know today found its foothold in North America.
It’s highly unlikely that wild turkey had a place of honor of the early Thanksgiving tables. Really, the chances are just as good that folks were eating your aunt’s green bean casserole. Domesticated turkeys eventually found their way into the tradition as currently observed, and from there, it was a slow-moving progression to my hotel room in Nashville at 2 am. I don’t know much about many things, but being stuffed between three slices of toasted white bread for some mildly-drunk chef turned writer to shove in his face as a sleep aid seems an inglorious way for a god to go out.
As you sit down next week, paterfamilias carving the bird in a Rockwell-esque tribute (Why is it always dudes who carve the turkey? Like they had a single thing to do with it up until that point. But I digress.) take a minute to think about the conquest and destruction that led to this hopefully flavorful and moist bird on your plate. It is due some reverence.
