"Thanksgiving is indeed the nearest thing we have to a national liturgy. From sea to shining sea, it calls forth a grand harmony of groaning boards … Yet what must we think of a nation that, as the central motif of this gustatory concerto, insists upon a bird that has a name used chiefly as an insult!"

So pontificated Episcopal theologian Robert Farrar Capon way back in the 1980s when he was writing of Thanksgiving for The New York Times.

And turkeys received another worldwide video insult when, right after the lost election and the Sarah Palin run at the vice presidency, we were treated to turkeys being smashed, crashed, delivered headfirst into a funnel behind her – the entire atmosphere reeking of blood, guts and horror. (Sarah didn’t know this was happening or else she surely wouldn’t have pronounced it "fun.") So, the dear old turkey has suffered the slings and arrows of many attackers, yet if the big bird is simply roasted properly, according to excellent recipes (and there are millions of them), the dish can be quite tasty, bearing no resemblance to the horrible processed "turkey" we get offered every day in delicatessen sandwiches.

At any rate, people go on trying to let turkey eating get out of control and to make Thanksgiving special because they eat about 46 million turkeys each November. And approximately 80% or 31.2 million Americans travel by car, 4.7 million by plane, 33 million by train or bus for this holiday to get with family, hated in-laws, deserted cousins and dear friends. And along with turkeys, Americans also celebrate at this time the lowly cranberry, which is one of the rare fruits native to North America.

The above mentioned Rev. Capon has also noted that Thanksgiving "is the only nationwide festival we have that still involves honest and considerable ‘sit-down eating.’ It is the perfect holiday, superior to all other federally finagled four-day weekends." He noted that other holidays are "vacancies in time … Thanksgiving, by contrast, has not only a common theme but a common ritual as well … Thanksgiving is better even than Hanukkah, Christmas, Passover or Easter. Those festivities, while they involve unifying activities, are enjoyable chiefly in anticipation. The feasts themselves are letdowns. Advent, for instance, is fun: It has in Christmas, a future that brightens each dark December day. When December 25 finally rolls around, it is simply a present with no future whatsoever to look forward to. Thanksgiving, however, has Advent, Hanukkah and Christmas waiting to burst upon us the minute the dishwasher is loaded."

I rather admire writer Bryan Miller’s defense of the turkey He says it "deserves respect for tradition’s sake," noting that "more than any other food, it embodies the early American spirit; tireless effort against depressing odds, spiritual sustenance, season renewal." And he adds the reminder that turkeys are close to red meat in protein content but only about 11 % fat, even less if the skin is not included. A serving has about nine grams of fat and that is unsaturated. So chow down, you food purists!

***

Sentimentalists believe the first Thanksgiving occurred about 1621 when early settlers shared a feast with the native Indians. (I rather imagine they were more worried about the natives eating them than about what they had to eat with the natives.)