T is also for Turkeygeddon

Thursday 22 December 2011

Around 10 million Turkeys are eaten every Christmas in the UK, which amounts to over 19,000 tonnes of the stuff being cooked. 6,711 tonnes of that are fresh whole turkeys with the another 12,472 tonnes being frozen whole birds.

And of course turkeys aren't originally from turkey - they're from Mexico. The confusion arose due to the fact that they were introduced into central Europe by Turkish merchants.

Just to add to the confusion, because America had been discovered by explorers seeking an alternative route to India and the East, other nations named the bird assuming it was of Indian descent.

In France the turkey was called coq d'Inde, (now corrupted to dindon). In Italy, turkey was galle d'India, in Germany the name was indianische henn, while throughout the Ottoman Empire it was called the hindi.

Other tasty morsels of information like this can be found in the books over on the left-hand sidebar but until yours arrives in the post from Amazon, why not keep yourself amused by taking part in a festively-themed turkey shoot, by clicking this link?


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