Why can dry wood turkey become a symbolic food for Thanksgiving?

Compared with ordinary days, festivals are symbolic activities or foods. For European and American festivals, such as Valentine's Day, roses are symbols. On Valentine's Day, couples usually send roses to show their love. And Christmas. The symbols of Christmas are socks, Santa Claus, deer and, of course, Christmas music. When these things were put out, everyone immediately realized that Christmas was coming.

In China, apart from unique activities and symbols, festivals are also combined with food culture to develop a unique festival culture. In the traditional festivals in China, almost every festival has its own symbolic food, such as eating glutinous rice balls on the Lantern Festival, zongzi on the Dragon Boat Festival, moon cakes on the Mid-Autumn Festival and jiaozi in the north during the Spring Festival. This is also the unique feature of China Festival. Relatively speaking, Europe and the United States are not so closely integrated, but there is a festival with symbolic food, and that is Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is not a holiday in Europe and America. On the contrary, Thanksgiving Day is only popular in America. This is a national holiday in America. Canada has a tradition of Thanksgiving, while Greece and Egypt have their own unique Thanksgiving, but France, Britain, Germany and other European countries do not celebrate Thanksgiving.

Eating turkey on Thanksgiving Day in America. Influenced by the United States, Canada also began to eat turkey on Thanksgiving Day. Who pissed who off? Why did turkey become a symbolic food for Thanksgiving? To understand this problem, we need to know about Turkey first.

Turkey, also known as hairy chicken, is native to the United States and Mexico and is a unique species in America. Its head is 3-4 times larger than that of domestic chickens, its body length is about 1m, its wingspan is 1.2m- 1.4m, its weight is 2.5- 10.8kg, and its feathers vary from ivory to brownish gray to black.

Turkey is docile, slow-moving, fresh and rich in protein, so it has become a very good poultry for Native Americans, supplementing the protein for the aborigines, so it has also been widely planted. Turkey has also become a symbolic food for Thanksgiving, starting from the origin of Thanksgiving.

1620, a group of Puritans, about 102 people, were bewitched by the London company at that time, and they also wanted to find a pure land for future generations, so they decided to immigrate to America and establish a Puritan country, which was also the origin of American countries. This 102 person crossed the ocean in the Mayflower, and it took 66 days to reach America, and the journey was only 66.

They arrived at Plymouth Colony by John? Captain Smith surveyed and named it in Plymouth, Massachusetts today.

After this 102 person arrived, life was also very difficult. It was winter, and the lack of fresh fruits and vegetables led to the prevalence of scurvy, and people died constantly. They were also harassed and attacked by local Indians. By the next spring, only 50 people had survived.

The following spring, these English Puritans soon planted seeds. At the same time, they reached an alliance with the local Indians, who taught them to grow corn and raise turkeys. With the help of Indians, these Puritans slowly gained a foothold. In autumn, they hunted many birds, turkeys and deer. On the day of celebrating the harvest, new immigrants from Europe invited Indians to thank God for their gifts. Thanksgiving celebrated by the first European immigrants and Indians lasted for three days. Thanks to the joint efforts of the first generation of new immigrants and great leaders, the peaceful friendship between European immigrants and Indian tribes lasted for half a century.

In this way, this form of gratitude slowly passed down, and turkey, as a symbol of Indian aid and a gift from God, gradually became a necessary food for Thanksgiving. However, for a long time, there was no fixed day for Thanksgiving in the United States. 1863, President Lincoln first declared this day as the federal Thanksgiving Day, but due to the civil war, many people still opposed it until the 1 870s. 194 165438 On February 26th, President Roosevelt Jr. signed a congressional resolution to formally change the date of Thanksgiving Day from/kloc-0.

Thanksgiving in Canada is earlier than in America. The first official Thanksgiving Day in Canada is scheduled for 1872, 10, 14. This Thanksgiving is to celebrate George V's recovery from illness. Since then, Thanksgiving Day in Canada is generally the first Monday in 10. After World War I, Memorial Day and Thanksgiving Day were often held in the same week. In order to avoid the conflict between these two festivals, the Canadian Parliament changed the date of Thanksgiving to the second Monday of 10 in 1957, and this date has been preserved ever since. At first, Thanksgiving in Canada was just a banquet. After the American Revolution broke out, American royalists came to Canada and introduced the American elements of Thanksgiving to Canada. Since then, turkey has become a symbolic food for Thanksgiving in Canada.

As for turkeys, Americans now have a special feeling. Turkey feeds the new immigrants who came to America for the first time. They eat turkey every year. The United States is also grateful for turkeys, and has gradually formed a tradition of presidential pardon for turkeys. The president of the United States celebrates Thanksgiving every year? What? One or two turkeys, these turkeys will be raised to death and will never be slaughtered.

As for how this tradition came about, it is still inconclusive. Some people say that Kennedy pardoned a turkey before his assassination, some people say that Lincoln's son begged Lincoln not to slaughter the turkey, and some people say that President Truman once released a turkey. There are all three statements, and it is impossible to determine which president started it. However, it is clear that Bush Sr. ..

1989 Thanksgiving Day, Bush received a turkey as a Thanksgiving gift, but he did not intend to slaughter it. He said humorously in the White House Rose Garden. Now it has been pardoned by the president and allowed to spend the rest of his life on a farm near here. ? So this turkey was sent to a farm in Herndon, Virginia. Since then, every American president will pardon a turkey on Thanksgiving Day, which has become a tradition for the president to pardon turkeys on Thanksgiving Day.