Posts Tagged ‘turkey’

Turkey

The word “turkey” has more than one meaning on American English. It can mean an actual bird, i.e. the turkey. An alternative meaning is that of a person who is bit absent-minded and silly but in mildly offensive way and dates back to the fifties – remember “Happy Days”? You can just hear The Fonz calling some poor unsuspecting bloke a “turkey”.

However today’s “Word of the Week” portrays the more traditional and completely benign use of the word. This lowly bird is a focal point of the well-known American celebration called Thanksgiving. Next Thursday will be Thanksgiving Day and believe me it is a day-off to put in some serious eating.

This “holiday” dates back to the mid-19th Century and was originally celebrated to thank God and the Native Americans for helping the pilgrims to survive the harsh winter. Since then it has become more of a secular holiday and in 1941 it became a federal holiday.

Turkey is the prime meat at these family gatherings, however the original pilgrims used any fowl at the early celebrations. As a Brit and a vegetarian, I hadn’t ever celebrated this truly American holiday. However after living here for such a long time, I recently acquiesced and had a small little do last year and it went quite well – tofurky and all!

It’s not such a bad celebration and the fact that we can dedicate a day to giving thanks for all the good things in our lives, has got to do someone some good somewhere!

So to all my fellow Americans, eat up and be merry and remember as we moan about the weather or our jobs or our partners, that there’s always someone out there worse off than you.

Amen to that!

Thor’s Day September 10

1942 – On this date in history a massive bombing of Düsseldorf set the city a blaze when the British Royal Air Force (RAF) dropped in excess of 100,000 bombs in one-hour. Quite possibly one for the record books, and if it is, I hope this one is never broken.

1953 – On Thursday, September 10, 1953 the Swanson TV Dinner is introduced to the USA and sells its first tasty little dish. What would have done without this? In a somewhat unrelated topic, in later years, because the economy was slow, Swanson buys all the turkeys left over from Thanksgiving and makes a ton of money by freezing them into this same line of TV Turkey Dinners!

1968 – On this date, September 10, 1968 although not a Thursday, Antonio Hardy one of the smoothest Hip Hop artists of all time was born. You may or may not know him as “King Asiatic Nobody’s Equal” or the man who Getz the Job Done…the one and only Big Daddy Kane! This hip-hop mogul turns 41 this year, raw, still flowing and now a producer for up and coming hip-hop artists.