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As Thanksgiving ebbs into memory and Christmas looms on the horizon, Eat This Podcast concerns itself with the turkey. For a nomenclature nerd, the turkey is a wonderful bird. Why would a bird from America be named after a country on the edge of Asia? The Latin name offers a clue; the American turkey is Meleagris gallopavo, while the African guineafowl is Numida meleagris. But why did the first settlers adopt a name they were already familiar with, rather than adopt a local indigenous name such as nalaaohki pileewa for the native fowl. Simple answer: nobody knows.

Then there’s the question of how a somewhat shy bird of the underbrush turned into the monstrous spectacle that graces holiday tables? And why is Rockingham County, Virginia, the turkey capital of the world? That last question is actually rather easy to answer, as I learned from Nancy Sorrells, a local historian in Rockingham County. The domestication question, however, is far from simple. Greg Laden, a biological anthropologist and science writer, did his best to explain it all. And at the end of the day, I confess, I prefer goose.

Notes

1. Of course Wikipedia has a List of names for turkeys.
2. The Main Squeeze (James Madison University alumna) clued me in to the crucial role of Rockingham County in the turkey story, which led me straight to Nancy Sorrells’ article
3. Greg Laden writes at Science Blogs, and elsewhere.
4. You surely don’t need to be told that the Turkey Trot was performed by Little Eva.
5. Samuel H. Blosser, pioneer of artificial incubation, lived to be very nearly 90.
6. Banner photograph modified from an image by Don DeBold.

   Huffduff it

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As people in North America prepare to give thanks and devour unimaginable quantities of food, we go to the heart of the matter. Why are turkeys called turkeys?

In next week’s show, more about the American contribution to poultry culture.

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These days, every little town and village in Italy has its sagra or festa, a weekend, or longer, in celebration of a particular local food. Although they have a whiff of tradition about them, most of these are relatively recent inventions, designed to attract tourists as much as honour the food and cement community relationships. I was surprised to learn, then, that in 1930 Mussolini’s Minister of Agriculture, Arturo Marescalchi, proposed a national celebration of the grape – the festa dell’uva – throughout the peninsula. There were many reasons. A glut of table grapes was certainly one, as the government sought to persuade the public to eat Italian. There were also political motives, celebrating Italy as a young nation and strengthening support for the fascists. The result, for a few glorious years, was an annual spectacle of amazing proportions. In Rome, markets were set up for each region to sell its table grapes, there were processions of outlandish grape-themed floats, and a good time seems to have been had by all.

Ruth Lo, a PhD student at Brown University and scholar at the American Academy in Rome has been studying the period and generously agreed to talk to me about her work.

Notes

1. Ruth Lo recently presented a paper – Celebrating the festa dell’uva: Grapes and Urban Spectacle in Fascist Rome – at the annual meeting of the Southern Historical Society in Atlanta, Georgia.
2. L’istituto Luce, L’Unione Cinematografica Educativa, was another arm for fascist propaganda. Some of the films Luce made are on YouTube. Two of my favourites, well worth the visit as historical documents, are the celebrations at the Basilica di Massenzio, these days the home of a literary festival, and one from Marino in the Castelli Romani, apparently Marescalchi’s inspiration and still going strong today.

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In the 1930s the Italian fascists decided that floats laden with giant grapes would be the vehicle to drive forward Italian nationalism. Hear how in next week’s Eat This Podcast.

My compadre Luigi hangs out on social media, where he came across “fermented taro leaves made into a patty“. He plunged in and researched anishi, so I don’t have to. For much more about taro and other edible aroids, why not listen to the podcast with Karin Vaneker?