What's the Deal with Thanksgiving?

The Pilgrims and the Indians?

Yes. It is acknowledged by scholars, experts and researchers that Thanksgiving was first celebrated by Plymouth colonists, (aka the Puritans) and the Native American tribe, the Wampanoag Indians in 1621.

Nobody disputes this.

However, the Puritans and the Wampanoag Indians had a culture conflict between one another. Besides their religious conflicts, Puritan's and Wampanoag's set of morals and ethic values were also a factor in which the two groups disagreed with each other.

Times were tense.

One of the United States "Founding Fathers" thought the Turkey should have been the National Bird

Benjamin Franklin thought and felt strongly about the turkey being the national bird of the United States, instead of the American Eagle.

In the year of 1784, Franklin suggested to his daughter in a letter that he felt that the wild turkey should have been the more appropriate symbol for their new independent country (the United States), rather than the bald eagle. Franklin felt that the wild turkey was a more native bird to their newly found country; plus, the wild turkey stood as a "Bird of Courage".

Although Franklin debated as much as he could, majority ruled that the American Eagle shall symbolize the newly found country - the United States of America..

Personally, I think the American Eagle was the better choice (in the long run)

But most people see the turkey as being slow, dim witted and lazy - which of course, is totally not true (well, sort of).

The domesticated turkey may be a bit on the slow side, since most domesticated turkeys are bred for one thing, and one thing only - that's right!
As food!

As for being dim witted, well, the domesticated turkey may also be a bit on the slow side on the intelligence table, as well as on the physical table.
Okay, I admit it. The domesticated turkey is lazy, but that's the way we want'em.
Dumb, fat & lazy!

However, the wild turkey is anything but dumb, fat and lazy. The wild turkey is actually a brillant animal, quite strong and has been clocked at 55 mph when running...yeah, that's right.

Turkey wasn't the main course during the "first" Thanksgiving feast...was it?

Deer meat and wild fowl were the only two items that professional historians could prove was on the "first" Thanksgiving Day menu. The location of where the "first" Thanksgiving took place was where lobster, goose, duck, seal, eel and cod were plentiful and abundant, but these items can't be proven if they were actually on the "first" Thanksgiving Day menu.

A Popular Rumor about the Thanksgiving Day Turkey

It's been said that Queen Elizabeth of the 16th century enjoyed her roast goose. In fact, when she heard that a ship from the Spanish Armada was on its way to attack her precious England, but somehow sank while in route, she was eating a roast goose.

The Queen was ecstatic about the good news and ordered another roast goose. Soon, everybody caught on with this new fad - roast goose. (I know, exciting...right?) So, roast goose became the popular dish for a celebration dinner.

When the colonists set sail for the new world, wild turkey was a lot easier to trap than the geese. With that being said, the turkey became the popular dish for Thanksgiving Day dinner.

It's more like an idea than 
an actual recipe.

There's not much you can do to "enhance" a turkey.
There's quite a few things you can do to ruin a turkey (forget to remove the gizzards, over cook, &c.), but to actually have the turkey BURST with flavor...?
That's a skill very few have.

So here's an idea - add bacon.
That's right.

It's EASY to do too!

1. Place a large piece of foil on the counter top. This is where you're going to weave your bacon for the turkey.
2. Lay horizontally 5-7 rows of bacon strips. Use two (2) strips to make one (1) row.
   Overlap the ends.
3. Starting closer to you, flip over every OTHER strip of bacon to where you can lay two (2) strips of bacon over and under your horizontally laid strips of bacon.
4. After you've laid two (2) rows of vertically laid bacon strips, fold back down the bacon.
5. Do this again starting on the other side until you have completed making the "bacon blanket".
6. Using the foil, carefully flip the bacon onto the turkey - viola...a bacon weaved turkey.

You will NEVER want Another

1. Buy 20 regular White Castle Hamburgers place in refrigerator overnight
2. Tear bun & meat patty into pieces into a bowl
3. 3 cups of celery
4. 2.5 teaspoons each of ground thyme and ground sage
5. 2.5 teaspoons of black pepper
6. Half a cup of chicken broth
7. Mix well and place in empty turkey cavity or casserole dish