Tags: holidays, list, thanksgiving, top 10
November 25, 2009 | lists
Canadians celebrated their Thanksgiving last month and most of them will have almost fully digested their meals as their cutlery-wielding American neighbors now get ready to attack plates as part of their own traditional gorge-fest.
There is much to give thanks for on this aptly-named day. First, there is the rich history of the holiday, something pleasantly revisionist that kids can reenact in pageants about how the pilgrims and the natives got along famously.
What the founders of the country were actually giving thanks for back then does not go at all well with pumpkin pie, no matter how many dollops of ice cream are added. In 1634, John Winthrop, then governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, wrote of settlers’ growing conflict with the Indians, but he did express gratitude – for the plague that appeared heaven sent to rid the Earth of them. “For the natives, they are near all dead of the smallpox, so the Lord hath cleared our title to what we possess.”
Most of us, of course, do not seek any depth greater than that offered by a deep dish pie on Thanksgiving, but even then there is much to be grateful for. The day offers a chance to bond with family members that doesn’t drag on for as long as Christmas, and for NFL fans, a group that comprises just about every American male who doesn’t want to live his life as a social pariah, there is a full slate of games for which they – and their bookies – can be grateful.
And of course at the center of it all – feasted on in the (so the story goes) colonial past and present and giving football gamblers something to choke on in the present – is the turkey (which, like the best stars of the NFL, is also pumped full of growth hormones and dies young).
While the bird, with its many sandwiches worth of juicy meat, gets all the attention, we’ve decided to explore other turkeys — and not in any rural coming-of-age way. These are our Top 10 Turkeys for turkey day:
10. Turducken:
Never has a foodstuff containing “turd”, those four letters at least, tasted so good. Turducken, which contains turkey, duck and chicken, featured in the last season of Top Chef, when the challenge was to create “a protein in a protein in a protein”. This unholy mix is seen here in a dish that looks like a) a decisive volley fired in the war against encroaching vegetarianism in which we’d gladly enlist and b) a cross section from a medical textbook.
9. Waylon Jennings as a Turkey Truck Driver in Sesame Street’s Follow that Bird:
Occupation rather than name for this one, but it’s bird-related, so it gets a pass.
In the movie, Big Bird is forced to move in to a foster home full of Dodos. Preferring the company of his ‘Street’ gang, he runs away and during the course of his adventures meets up with a turkey truck driver played by Waylon Jennings, who, in an unlikely turn of events, does not decide to butcher this giant freak of a bird and harvest him for the months’ of meat he could provide hungry children. He’s nice to Big Bird instead and takes him to a farm where kids befriend him, and also do not unsheathe axes at the site of such a fine-feathered specimen.
8. Turkey Lurkey
From The Sky is Falling fable, which is a false prediction of calamity without any justification (say, the tawdry debate over universal health-care currently going on), Turkey Lurkey is one of the characters encountered by Henny Penny (or Chicken Little, which sounds like a restaurant that uses the same deep fryer over and over). The fable’s moral changes depending on which of the countless variations are told but Turkey Lurkey always meets the fate of many of his brothers on Thanksgiving, when he’s Foxy-Woxy lunch.
7. Turkey (Bowling Term)
Three X’s connote not only websites that have put you on your IT administrator’s watch list but also feature in that other sport of kings (the one that doesn’t involve putting small men on horses and whipping them — the men, not the horses — until they run around a track): bowling.
A ‘turkey’ in bowling refers to three strikes in a row, while more than that (6 or 9) can be referred to as a Golden Turkey, which is not nearly as good a find as a golden goose, a term used to refer to a gullible person with deep pockets.
6. Turkey Baster
A google search for turkey basters these days will bring up more hits related to Melissa Etheridge’s decision to have rotund, elfen tenor David Crosby father her child than methods of food preparation.
5. Turkey, the country
The sole functioning Muslim democracy in the world — something for which we should all be thankful in in that there’s at least one to model others on — Turkey has brought us not only one of the world’s most violent national anthems, but also NBA baller and Toronto Raptor Hedo Türkoğlu, a better than average player who is proving instrumental in getting the Raptors to the point where they’ll just miss the playoffs.
4. The Gobbledygooker
In the 90s, the WWE unveiled the worst gimmick in their history with the Gobbledygooker.
A giant egg was featured prominently on WWF television in the weeks leading up to the Survivor Series pay-per-view Thanksgiving pay-per-view wrestling show. On the day of the Survivor Series, the egg hatched and what emerged is to your left — possibly the single greatest wrestling-related disappointment in many a young fan’s life, next to being told by some wise-ass older kid that wrestling is fake.
3. American Home Brewers Turkey logo
The acronym of the American Homebrewers Association, or ‘AHA’ is just what you’d exclaim when you realize what you’re missing out on by not saving money and making superior suds at home. More logos should feature happy-looking turkeys enjoying a bottle of home brew.
2. Turkey phrases: Along with our guts, turkeys have also entered our lexicon, through phrases such as “jive turkey”, “talking turkey” and “cold turkey”. the first two are 70s idioms and refer to someone who is able to BS with aplomb, while the latter refers to the method of breaking free from addiction most likely to fail.
1. Wild Turkey
The Dirty Bird aka, Kickin’ chicken, be wary of buried hostilities coming to the fore if this bourbon is broken out during Thanksgiving celebrations. Pictured here, empty, the way it looks after many a psychologically-scarring family holiday, Wild Turkey is one of the best known of the Kentucky bourbons and is surprisingly nice to sip on a long-haul bus ride.
(For booze brands that weren’t as well named, click here)
One of my favorite days of the year. My friend is a Cowboys fan, so every year for the past 7 years, he, myself and a few other friends book today off(we’re Canadian) and deepfry a turkey, drink and watch football. Always a great day.