"Here he comes, swelling like a turkey-cock"

Discovery News tells us about the findings of a study published in February 2010:

Native Americans had already domesticated turkeys twice: first in south-central Mexico at around 800 B.C. and again in what is now the southwestern U.S. at about 200 B.C., according to a new study. . .

"Interestingly, the domestic turkeys were initially raised for their feathers, which were used in rituals and ceremonies, as well as to make feather robes or blankets," lead author Camilla Speller told Discovery News. "Only later, around 1100 A.D., did the domestic turkeys become an important food source for the Ancestral Puebloans."(Wired had a better story on this.)

 According to the University of Illinois Extension website:

Spaniards brought tame Mexican turkeys to Europe in 1519, and they reached England by 1524. The Pilgrims actually brought several turkeys to America on the voyage in 1620.

 England had turkeys for only 40 years when  William Shakespeare was born in 1564 and 75 years when he wrote Henry V.


From Birds of Shakespeare:

The turkey-cock, introduced into Europe from the New World in the early part of the sixteenth century, had become quite naturalized in the farm-yards of England by the time of Elizabeth the First. It is several times alluded to by Shakespeare, sometimes as a symbol of conceited ostentation, and also as an article of food. When in King Henry V Gower sees Pistol approaching, he exclaims to Fluellen “Here he comes, swelling like a turkey-cock,” to which the Welshman, who had resolved to make the braggart eat the leek, replies, “’Tis no matter for his swellings nor his turkey-cocks.” [V, 1]

But let's go back to those pre-Columbian turkeys. I found traces of information and then I found this from  foodtimeline:

"Aztec food...is a subject for which relatively rich written source material exists...The chronicle of Bernal Diaz del Castillo, who accompanied Cortes...and the illustrated work...of Father Sahagun, written in the 1530s, are full of fascinating detail for food historians. The Aztecs, coming south from the deserts of New Mexico, had in the 14th century occupied sites in the valley of Mexico, an area rich in lakes, whose produce (fowl of many kinds, fish, frogs, water insects, algae) the newcomers adopted with enthusiasm. They flourished and established their dominion over a wide area...Sahagun tells us they feasted...on white tortillas, grains of maize, turkey eggs, turkeys, and all kinds of fruit. He gives a list of 25 fruits, including four varieties of sweet potato, sweet manioc, avocados, and come cacti. It is said that they flinched from chocolate at first, but when the Indians set the example they drank and found it good...The description by Bernal Diaz of how Motechuhzoma was served and ate, and of the thousands of jars of foaming chocolate, is famous. It contrasts strongly with the general impression of the Aztecs as an abstemious and frugal people, who subsisted on meagre fare and for whom fast...were a part of the way of life...Maize was the staple food of the Aztecs and the focus of a large part of their religion...The food value of the maize was greatly enhanced by the process called nixtamalization...Beans and chia were important enough to figure as items of tribute paid to the Aztec state, as were amaranth and squash seeds. Chilli was available...The short list of domesticated creatures has headed by the turkey and included the dog as well as...bees. The culinary sophistication of the Aztecs is apparent from the extraordinarily long list of spices and flavourings which they would use with chocolate."
---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 44)

And finally, the jackpot - a paper which "was read at the Central States Anthropological   Society meetings, March II, 1989, University of Notre Dame, by the senior author."
(the link below is a PDF file)

Evidence for Pre-Columbian Animal Domestication in the New World

D.L. Johnson

B.K. Swartz, Jr. 

Ball State University 

Muncie, Indiana

. . .Here we will discuss seven animals domesticated in the New World before European discovery. The dog, "llama", guinea pig, turkey, Muscovy duck, stingless bee, and the cochineal insect comprise the list of known Pre- Columbian, New World animal domesticates. . . (p. 1)

Turkeys; Meleagris gallopavo

Turkeys are found throughout North and Central America. Domesticated turkey bones appear in the Tehuacan Valley sequence early in the Palo Blanco phase, ca. AD 180. This is the oldest reliably dated evidence for the domestic turkey in Mesoamerica (Flannery 1966:175).

MacNeish (1966:290) points to the hybridization of turkeys, as evidence by bones found at Tehuacan, as proof that the turkey was domesticated. Bones found in the Northwest of Mexico and the Southwest United States, with earlier dates, as well as genetic similarities amoung present day domestic and wild turkey populations in the "Southwest United States, indicate that domesticated turkeys spread from the greater Southwest to Tehuacan"
(1966: 19-5) .

Analysis of coproliths, radiocarbon dating ca. AD 180, from the Tehuacan Valley shows the presence of turkey feathers and bees in the diets of the people living there (Callen 1966:273, 265). Turkey bones found in the basin-valley sites in the Northern Sierra suggest that the bird was originally taken from its mountain habitat and penned in the lower valley villages (Di Peso 1977:7) .

Three varieties of turkeys were found at Casas Grandes, ca. AD 250. They were: 1) the Small Indian Domestic, -most popular at the New Mexico Tompiro pueblos in the Rio Grande drainage; 2) the Large Indian Domestic, resembling birds from east central Arizona; and 3) the Tse Tala. which was a very large bird (Di Peso 1974:602). Evidence of egg shells and bones suggest that the Small and Larqe Indian Domestics were hybridized (Di Peso 1974:603) •

The earliest naturalist to give an account of the domestic turkey was Oviedo y Valdes. Slightly confused, he described turkeys that he had seen in the West Indies soon after the Conquest, "Whither they had been brought," he said, "from Spain" (Di Peso 1535:306).

Earlier records of turkeys include the lists of food served by Moctezuma to Cortes and his men in 1518 (Anderson and Dibble 1978:19; Prescott 1847:89). Prescott (1847:101) records that the yearly expenditure of the Aztec king Tezcuco included 8000 turkeys. Tepexi received tribute from his people in 1537, to give to Cortes, that included turkeys (Gorenstein 1971:341).  Di Peso (1974:602) mentioned the use of turkeys for trade, plumage, blood for decoration and religious ceremonies in Casas Grandes, as well as grave goods.  (pp. 37-38)

So, as you eat your Thanksgiving turkey today, you  are following a tradition (eating turkey, not our Thanksgiving holiday dinner) that goes back a long way in North and Central America.  But I'm guessing the didn't keep their turkeys wrapped in plastic in the fridge.