More Than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality

by Karen Davis

This scholarly and authoritative book examines the cultural and literal history, as well as the natural history and biological needs and concerns of turkeys. Davis explores how turkeys came to be seen as birds who were not only the epitome of failure or stupidity but also the suitable centerpiece of the celebration of freedom in America itself―Thanksgiving. She examines the many varieties of turkeys and uncovers the methods by which millions of turkeys are raised, fattened, and slaughtered on farms around America today. Davis takes us back to European folklore about turkeys, the myths, fairytales, and downright lies told about turkeys and their habits and habitats. She shows how turkeys in the wild have complex lives and family units, and how they were an integral part of Native American and continental cultures and landscape before the Europeans arrived. Finally, Davis draws conclusions about our paradoxical, complex, and "bestial" relationship not just with turkeys, but with all birds, and thus with all other animals. She examines how our treatment of animals shapes our other values about ourselves, our relationship with other human beings, and our attitude toward the land, nation, and the world.

Genres: Animals, History, Nonfiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published November 15, 2001

About the author

Karen Davis (born February 4, 1944) is an American animal rights advocate, and president of United Poultry Concerns, a non-profit organization founded in 1990 to address the treatment of domestic fowl – including chickens, turkeys and ducks – in factory farming. Davis also maintains a sanctuary.

She is the author of several books on veganism and animal rights, including Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry (1997) and The Holocaust and the Henmaid's Tale: A Case for Comparing Atrocities (2005).

Reviews

[Katey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well written, researched, and referenced book about the turkey, and the role it tragically plays in that effectively meaningless American holiday, Thanksgiving.

It touched more than upon that one day out of the year, of course, delving into history (the Aztecs were among the first to factory farm the creature) and even biology (natural origins of the different species), to behaviour and moral implications. As the President of the United Poultry Concerns, and personally fostering rescued meat-industry turkeys, Davis writes with an emotional reflection at times, but mostly the evidence speaks for itself.

If anything is to be taken away from this book, is that turkeys are not stupid and thus deserve to be eaten, as the propaganda from the National Turkey Federation would like you to believe, nor are they deserving easy targets in the wild, as hunters would like you to believe. They are a successful species, with complicated behaviour and instincts, brought to near extinction in the wild by humans. (Does that sound familiar? Hmmm.) Modern science is only just beginning to understand the specific intelligence of fowl, and I love books like these: ones that bring to light facts and examples about an animal that usually no one thinks twice about consuming.

[Rhiannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have had this on my to-read list for over ten years. I finally ordered a copy last December and got round to reading it this month, ahead of thanksgiving and in a year turned upside down by a virus originating in humans' lust for dead animal flesh. It's both fascinating and difficult to read; I especially enjoyed reading about the natural behaviours of wild turkeys when allowed to live their lives, but naturally found some passages difficult. As someone who is not American, the discussion of the history of killing and eating turkeys in the US and the traditions around Thanksgiving (like the presidential pardon of a single turkey, which apparently only dates to 1989) were particularly interesting.

[Peacegal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poultry welfare expert Karen Davis challenges readers to rethink the Thanksgiving turkey: “Why do we hate this celebrated bird? Why do we celebrate this hated bird?” she challenges. Indeed, it’s not enough to merely slaughter 48 million turkeys for our yearly ritual, we also feel the need to mock the birds and anyone who doesn’t partake in their flesh.

In More than a Meal, we learn our ancestors could be just as cruel to farmed animals as we currently are:

To become white flesh, animals were often suspended head down from the kitchen ceiling. This is how calves became veal prior to the adoption of the veal crate in the 20th century.

And in some cases, they could have more humanity:

A turn-of-the-century manual suggested that birds shipped to market by rail should be placed in coops “high enough to permit the fowls to stand erect...and give comfort to the occupants of the coop.”...Today, the nine billion birds being shipped to slaughter each year in the United States receive no such consideration of their comfort.

The crippling genetics of today’s ever-suffering, factory-farmed turkeys are discussed at length, as well as the attributes of the North American wild turkeys to whom they trace their heritage.

Wild turkeys, too, have their own share of problems, being a favorite “game” bird of sport hunters. Davis writes of the great degree of manipulation that has gone into stocking wild turkeys for hunting season, including in some cases the release of game farm-bred hybrid birds to provide plenty of “targets.”

As with most sport hunting, there is the element of the sexual in wild turkey shooting.

Turkey hunters brag about the erotic pleasure they get from mimicking turkey courtship behavior, imitating a “hot hen” so that a lovesick tom will “offer its head and neck for a shot.”

There’s also the element of sadism. Apparently there is also a turkey version of the infamous live pigeon shoots:

Sponsored by the Lone Pine Sportsmen’s Club...the event was a live turkey shoot in which approximately one hundred leg-bound turkey hens were shot at for recreation.

The Presidential “pardon” of a live turkey is analyzed in depth, showing us just what short memories we have as Americans. Although the turkey industry has traditionally presented the President with a live turkey intended for the White House Thanksgiving banquet, the media-driven turkey “pardon” is a different animal altogether. Far from being a time-honored ritual stretching back generations:

It was during the 1980s that the presentation evolved into the pardoning ceremony it officially became in 1989.

Not that the supposedly “pardoned” turkey has to fear the White House oven anyway:

Turkeys destined for whole bird consumption are slaughtered at around four months old. ... In contrast, the White House turkeys are of breeding stock age. They are always males, they weigh an average of fifty pounds, and they are between six and twelve months old. ... [A]ccording to the National Turkey Federation, breeding-size birds “are processed for what are called canner packs—that is, they are going into soups or stews, things that are already cooked where the tenderness of the meat isn’t quite as important. And also, as you said, pet food and other byproducts, animal feed.

Davis has little patience for environmentalists who speak of reverence for the earth while heaping their plates with turkey (or other meat). In essence, we are all responsible for the ever-suffering, genetic mess that is the industrially-farmed turkey. Davis not only asks us to have compassion for the birds, but confront our own selfish desires. In parting, I leave you with these words...

I noted how euphoric it feels to “’think’ like a Mountain”—or...a Wild Turkey. However, it does not feel good to think like the wild turkey’s descendents and cousins on a factory farm or to put oneself vicariously through the events that put them there. It feels good to view oneself as an Environmental Hero in Chains seeking to unlock the key and run with the wild spirits of the earth, It does not feel good to see oneself through the eyes of one’s quotidian victims.

[mad mags · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Unique Look at our Cultural Views of a "Food" Animal

"More Than a Meal" is an incredible book, examining not just the nature of the turkey (behavior, intelligence, emotions, etc.), but also our cultural construction of it. Ms. Davis eloquently describes the many ways in which the turkey is dehumanized and demeaned in modern society. Such atrocities go far beyond the obvious (farming and killing turkeys for food), at times bordering on the ridiculous (for instance, the annual presidential pardoning of a Thanksgiving turkey that will soon die prematurely anyway, as it was bred for grotesquely rapid growth that its body cannot withstand). She also delves into the human psyche, in a quest to figure out just why we hate this particular bird so (yet schizophrenically honor it every fall).

Karen Davis is an asset to the animal rights community. While anti-ARAs may disparage her with childish nicknames (Karen "Bird Brain" Davis is a popular one), Ms. Davis is clearly deserving of her PhD. She's an excellent writer, transforming what at first glance might be a mundane subject into a fascinating examination of our dysfunctional attitudes towards the nonhuman animals with which we share this planet. "More Than a Meal" is a must-read for anyone interested in the humane treatment of animals.

http://www.amazon.com/review/R333RZMZ...