National Turkey Lovers’ Day

My head is dizzy from my lust for turkey sandwich.

Zachary Rich

Have you ever felt that Thanksgiving is just too far away, and it’s been far too long since you last tasted the delicious flesh of a properly prepared turkey? We know exactly how you feel.

Thanksgiving may, in fact, be our favorite food holiday out of the year, but it’s all about the turkey in the end, and why should that delicious meat be relegated to only Thanksgiving? Turkey Lovers’ Day encourages you to break the mold and have turkey whenever you want it, there’s nothing civilized about Turkey once a year.

How to Celebrate National Turkey Lovers’ Day

Cook a Turkey

Go to the store. Find yourself a Turkey. Put in your oven. Cook till done. Eat. It’s as simple as that.

Okay you’ll need to plan ahead and make sure you have lots of time, but that time can be cut short if you opt for something more like a turkey breast or tukey roast.

Enjoy Eating Your Turkey

Turkey is good for so much more than just a simple roast dinner. After the turkey is done, slice up the breast to use as sandwich fixings’, strip the dark meat off the bones and use them in making a soup. Turkey noodle casserole is another delicious way to enjoy this day.

Make Turkey Stock

Looking to make a quick soup with turkey leftovers? Take a bunch of vegetables (onions, carrots, garlic, celery) and sautee them first. Then drop them into a large stockpot with the skeleton and leftover skin to boil for 4 hours, salting and peppering to taste.

Now you have a delicious turkey stock that can be used for making soup, replacing the water in biscuits, just about anything you can imagine!

History of National Turkey Lovers’ Day

National Turkey Lovers’ Day was founded in 2016 by the National Turkey Federation as a way to promote this fowl in a season when it tends to get less attention.

Turkey has been a part of holiday cuisine since not long after American’s first landed at Plymouth Rock. Turkey is a quintessentially American bird, native to Forests from Mexico to SE Canada. However, the name for turkeys didn’t come from the Americas, but instead, the birds were thought to be a large sort of guineafowl that the Europeans were familiar with from Turkish merchants, and called them Turkey Fowl.

The turkey quickly exploded into a sort of worldwide popularity of such significance that the turkey actually entered into English heraldry, first appearing on the coat of arms of William Strickland as “A Turkey-Cock in his pride proper”.

There is also a distinctly European breed of Turkey now known as the Norfolk Turkey or Bronze Turkey, making this once American animal a truly international bird.

There’s nothing like the smell of a hot steaming turkey roasting in the oven, but that’s only one of the ways that it’s prepared. It has been baked, roasted, smoked, and recently it’s become popular to deep-fry the turkey, creating a unique form of preparation that’s wonderfully delicious, though it is a little perilous to prepare.