Column: Hail to the Turkey, an American icon

Since the first Thanksgiving feast held 400 years ago, the turkey has served as an enduring icon of one of America's most beloved holidays.

Appearing as a plump, grandly plumed image on everything from collectible trinkets to practical place settings these days, the tom turkey has long symbolized the blessing of bounty celebrated by Americans each Thanksgiving Day.

Puritan Pilgrims, who had completed a six-month voyage across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe in September 1620, landed near present-day Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Barely surviving their first winter in the New World, the English emigrants befriended some of the indigenous people and learned how to survive the harsh elements of their new home.

Tribal Americans taught the Pilgrims where to find food, how to plant and grow crops, and what to hunt.

The plus-sized turkey proved to be an ample meal for starving Pilgrims. Not surprisingly, then, the native North American bird quickly became the favored centerpiece of an annual Thanksgiving feast.

Today, meticulously prepared turkeys grace the supper tables of millions of Americans this time of year.

But tom turkey has also meant more to Americans than just a satisfying meal.

After all, U.S. presidents traced back to Abraham Lincoln have traditionally pardoned a lucky turkey just prior to the annual Thanksgiving holiday, granting the bird clemency and sparing its life in a grand gesture of mercy.

Even American Founding Father Benjamin Franklin extolled the turkey's inherent virtues, favorably contrasting the regal Tom with the Bald Eagle.

In a personal letter to his daughter, Sarah, in 1784, Franklin awarded some dignity to the gobbler while describing the Great Seal of the hereditary Society of the Cincinnati.

Pointing out that the seal's Bald Eagle illustration looked more like a turkey than the large bird of prey, Franklin went on to compare the two avians.

"(The Eagle) is a Bird of bad moral character," the letter is quoted by Harvard University in a project piece published in 2016. "He does not get his living honestly. You may have seen him perch'd on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk...(hen) pursues him and takes it from him."

The tom turkey, on the other hand, had earned Franklin's admiration for his perceived ferocity.

"For in Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird," the letter continues. "Withal a true original Native of America. He is besides, tho' a little vain and silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on."

In fact, legend has it that Franklin had proposed the turkey as the national symbol of the new United States.

But that's just a yarn spun by journalists over the years after Franklin's letter had been made public, aptly demonstrating that fake news has been as much an American tradition as Thanksgiving turkeys.

Perceived as typical of the popular American Press, embellishments were constructed around Franklin's comments, leading to a widely held belief that Franklin favored the turkey as America's national symbol.

Spicy journalism, after all, has tended to sell more news than bland facts.

There's no evidence that Franklin actually said he thought the turkey would make a better national symbol than the Bald Eagle.

"For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen as the Representative of our Country," Franklin wrote in the letter to his daughter.

From there, the press took his comments about the eagle and the turkey out of context and spun them into the myth as we know it today.

Despite this sensationalism, Franklin's sincerity toward the turkey may have only been metaphorical in nature. The journeyman printer-turned-eccentric scientist was a bit more unkind to gobblers in practice than in theory.

He was known to use the birds in his experiments of electrical current, commonly frying them to death.

In a letter to colleague Peter Collinson in 1751, Franklin described a more macabre relationship with turkeys:

"(A small amount of electricity) sufficient to kill common Hens outright... the Turkies, tho' thrown into violent Convulsions, then lying as dead for some Minutes, would recover in less than a quarter of an Hour," Franklin wrote. "(But by adding nearly double the current) we kill'd a Turky with them of about 10 lb.wt. and suppose they would have kill'd a much larger."

And yet, the depth of the turkey's value was never lost on Franklin, who seemed to marvel as much at the bird's softness as its grit.

"I conceit that the Birds kill'd in this Manner eat uncommonly tender," he concluded his letter.

Agreed. Especially fresh off the rotisserie spit or out of the infrared deep fryer.

Cemented by a legacy and tradition of thanksgiving, multitudes of selfless turkeys have given their lives in service to their country, indeed earning a place of honor in America... even if it is primarily at the center of the supper table.

Bon Appetit, and hail to the turkey!