Thanksgiving Turkey

The most significant symbols of Thanksgiving are the foods Americans eat for Thanksgiving dinner. On a broad level, these foods celebrate traditional agriculture life. Most of the traditional Thanksgiving dishes are fairly simple foods that are native to North America.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images It's estimated that more than 525 million pounds of turkey are consumed on Thanksgiving.

Most Americans associate Thanksgiving with turkey. This connection goes back to the prevalence of wild turkey in the New World. At the time of the first Thanksgiving, Plymouth Colony Governor William Bradford commented on "the great store of wild turkeys" -- even though it's thought that venison and fish were the center of the celebration [source: Bergland]. Turkey is such an important part of Thanksgiving that more than 90 percent of Americans eat it on Thanksgiving [source: Scripps Howard News Service].

After turkey, the most significant dish on the table is corn. This abundant crop was an important staple to the Pilgrims, and, with the help of the American Indians, was cultivated to help ensure that there would be enough food for the winter.

Cranberries were probably on the first Thanksgiving table. The American Indians taught the Pilgrims to make a cranberry sauce called "ibimi," which means "bitter berry." When the colonists saw the berry, they renamed it "crane-berry," because its flowers resembled the long-necked bird called the crane [source:U.S. Department of State].

In the next section, we'll look at modern traditions like parades, pardons and football.

Ben Franklin's Case for the Turkey In a letter to his daughter Sarah Bache, Ben Franklin shares his disappointment that the Bald Eagle, and not the turkey, was chosen as the centerpiece for the Great Seal: "For my own part I wish the Eagle had not been chosen the representative of our country. He is a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead tree near the river, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labor of the Fishing Hawk ... ­For the truth the Turkey is in comparison a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America ... He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a bird of courage, and would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his farm yard with a red coat on." [source: The Franklin Institute]