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Today, we're writing the cookbook on how turkeys became the Thanksgiving bird of choice
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As the U.S. broke away from British rule and attempted to form a unique national identity
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many turned to America's native birds for culinary inspiration. The turkey became a national symbol for many Americans
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and it became increasingly commonplace on post-revolutionary dinner tables. Alexander Hamilton supposedly once asserted that
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No citizen of the U.S. shall refrain from Turkey on Thanksgiving Day
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Despite these declarations, things didn't truly get moving until Sarah Josiefa Hale published her first ever novel, Northwood
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Northwood is an 1827 anti-slavery work that spends an entire chapter detailing an idyllic New England Thanksgiving
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complete with a roasted turkey placed at the head of the table. At the time, Thanksgiving was mostly celebrated regionally, with the New England states taking it the most seriously, kind of like Dunkin' Donuts
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Likewise, many individual states had their own official Thanksgiving days, with Thanksgiving being held anywhere from October to January, depending on where you lived
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Although George Washington himself declared November's final Thursday to be a day of public Thanksgiving and prayer in 1789, it was supposed to be a one-time event rather than an annual holiday
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But since America had been heading towards a Civil War for well just about as long as America had been a country Hale saw an opportunity to unify the fracturing nation She thought that nationalizing the Thanksgiving holiday around one shared special day would help create a national identity and thus keep the country together
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So Hale actively campaigned for the establishment of Thanksgiving as a national holiday
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It was through her work that people began looking back to the first Thanksgiving
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and myths about the pilgrims began to form, which included everything from the buckled hats and buckled shoes
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that the pilgrims didn't actually wear to a whole list of Thanksgiving foods that Pilgrims didn't actually eat
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Among these made-up foods were pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and a big, stuffed turkey
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Creating a national mythology around Thanksgiving still wasn't enough for Hale, who began a letter-writing blitz to America's presidents to convince them to embrace Thanksgiving
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until she finally got to a president who mattered. Abraham Lincoln. In 1863, Lincoln held the first ever national Thanksgiving
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While it was a little too late for national unity, Hale was still dubbed the Mother of Thanksgiving
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Today, Butterball turns out the most turkey meat for consumption, followed by Jenny O and Cargill protein
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Each company individually produces around a billion pounds of turkey in any given year
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Of those billion pounds, a large portion comes from the 46 million individual turkeys consumed each year on Thanksgiving Day
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While there is some debate over exactly which president was the first department of Turkey, the trend didn't truly start in
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Until 1982, when Ronald Reagan sent his presidential turkey to live out the rest of its life on a farm
