From: schuldy@progress.COM (Mark Schuldenfrei)
Subject: Turkey in Europe: a quick survey.
Organization: Progress Software Corp.
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 20:48:30 GMT

Remember the discussion of Turkeys?  Well, here is the information
that I had promised, lo so many weeks ago.  Joanne MacElhiney
(in the SCA, Lady Johanna Dudley) gave me photocopies of several
sources from her files last night.  Sadly, they are mostly secondary
sources, but I shall quote the relevant sections from each of them.
Bibliography at the end...

The short version: Turkey was served in Western Europe by the middle
of the 1500s, with earliest introduction cited here as about 1523,
to Spain from the conquest of Mexico.

From a book by Reay Tannahill, who also wrote _Food_In_History_, comes
a book called _The_Fine_Art_of_Food_.  Page eighty eight features two
illustrations, number 42 being a clear picture of a turkey (virtually
matching a photograph that she gave me), and it is labelled "A German
view of the turkey, late sixteenth century".  The bird has a great
deal of detail, with the floppy skin of the nose hanging below the beak,
the close feathers on the upper breast, the larger scaled feathers on
the wings and back, and the tight, fanned tail we would expect to
see.  She says:

  "The turkey was imported into Europe at a very early stage indeed.
  The conquest of Mexico was begun in 1519, and the turkey was known in
  Europe by 1523. But the bird's name echos a long history of confusion.
  What seems to have happened is this. The bird was brought to Europe by
  the Spaniards.  Spain was on the English sea route to the Levant, and
  it was not long before the Levant Merchants--'Turkey Merchants', as
  they were called--discovered the bird and took it to England. Not
  knowing its real name (or perhaps merely reluctant to make the effort
  of pronouncing it), the English called it simply the Turkey-bird.  Many
  historians find this explanation difficult to accept, because, in the
  sixteenth century, turkey was sometimes confused with the guinea fowl,
  which was introduced into Britain in about 1530 and called the 'Turkie
  henne'.  Since the guinea fowl, however, was brought by the Portuguese
  from Guinea on the coast of West Africa, the Turkish attribution makes
  no sense at all unless it was assumed that the turkey reached Britain
  first, followed by the guinea fowl which, being smaller, was then
  assumed to be the hen bird of the species." [1]

An incomplete paragraph mentions the confusion in other countries,
who's names are predicated on the Americas being the Spanish Indies,
the French _coq_d'Inde_ (Indian Cock) becoming _dinde_ or _dindon_,
and the German _indianische_Henn_ (and confusing the Indies even
further, _Calecutische_Hahn_ and the Dutch contraction of this,
_Kalkoen_).

 book, _Food_and_Drink_In_Britain_, by C. Anne Wilson, in
chapter 4, "Wild fowl, tame fowl, and eggs", has this to say (pages
128-130):

  "Partridges and pheasants were sometimes preserved in enclosures for
  greater convenience.  Sir William Petre's estate at Ingatestone boasted
  one in the mid-sixteenth century, made of thin wooden lattice and
  running along the inner side of his orchard wall. 'In this frame both
  partridges, pheasants, guinea-hens, turkey hens and such like do yearly
  breed and are severally fed and brought up so as they become tame as
  other chickens' [2]

  Guinea-fowl had recently been rediscovered by the Portuguese on the
  coast of west Africa, brought back to Europe and thence reintroduced
  to Britain. The turkey had already been domesticated in Mexico and
  central America when the early explorers brought it back to Europe
  about 1523 or 1524. It may have owed its northern European names
  (Turkey bird, _cog_d'Inde_, hence _dindon_, _Calecutische_Hahn_) to
  the fact that it was brought on the last lap of its journey from
  southern Europe to the countries of the north by agents of the East
  India spice trade. In New England wild turkeys were still plentiful
  when the Pilgrim Fathers caught some for their first Thanksgiving
  dinner in 1621.

  By that date, turkeys had already won their way as domestic birds in
  old England. The earliest written record of their existance there was
  supplied by Archbishop Cramer in 1541, when, seeking to curb the
  gluttony of the higher clergy, he defined the 'greater fowls' of which
  but one was permitted in a dish. Along with crane and swan he listed
  turkey-cock. Fourteen years later enough turkeys were being sold in
  the London Market to warrant their price being legally fixed with
  those of other poultry. Turkey-cocks at that time cost six shillings,
  while turkey chicks were two shillings and eightpence. By 1752
  turkey-cocks had dropped to three and fourpence, and the hens, which
  always fetched a much lower price, to one and eightpence.

  [ . . . discussion of swans in comparison . . . ]

  But turkeys became farmyard fowls.  Soon they were a usual part of the
  husbandman's Christmas cheer. During the seventeenth and eighteenth
  centuries great numbers of turkeys, and also geese, were brought to
  the London Market from as far away as Cambridgeshire, Suffolk and
  Norfolk. They were driven to the city on foot, beginning their journey in
  August at the end of the harvest, and taking three months on the way." [3]

In Barbara Wheaton's wonderful book, Savoring the Past, is another few
interesting references.  On page 32, she describes the work of one
Lancelot de Casteau, who published a cookbook in about 1607, covering
nearly 50 years of cookery, to three successive prince-bishops in the
area where he lived, Liege (backwards accent over the first e, please).
The book, called _Ovverture_de_Cuisine_, describes many recipes, and
menus.  One menu for a feast for a new prince-bishop's elevation in 1557
brags about serving the new food, turkey.

On page 81, she discusses the introduction of one new food, turkey,
into France:

  Despite the considerable demand for novelty in France of the
  _ancien_regime_, the many foods from outside Europe that were discovered
  during the explorations of the sixteenth century and later and were in
  world trade were slow to be adopted.  Indeed, in the sixteenth century,
  the only New World food immediately accepted in France was the turkey.

  The coq d'inde (or Indian rooster -- in German, Indianischer Henn) was
  brought from Mexico to Spain early in the century. Its use spread
  quickly through Europe, replacing peacock as an important roast for
  banquets, though as far as I know it was never served sewn back into
  its skin.  It resembled the peacock closely enough to give cooks and
  diners a model in using it.  This similarity greatly smoothed the path
  of acceptance.  Turkey was a luxury meat, an exotic item at a time
  when the givers of banquets desired praise for serving all the kinds
  of meat that were in season.  The earliest French turkeys I have
  encountered so far in print were the pets of a ten-year-old princess,
  Jeane d'Albret. She had six pairs, which were evidently not intended
  for the table because records indicate that provision was made for their
  care in November 1528 when she left the Norman residence where she had
  passed her childhood. [4] Half of the eggs laid by these birds were to
  be given to a nearby convent. In 1549, the accounts of a banquest given
  in Paris for Catherine de Medici mention 66 turkeys. [4]. In 1559
  Gilles de Gouberville received a pair as a gift from a neighbor, and
  he rewarded the servant who brought them with a larger tip than was
  his custom. [4] By 1565 they were bought in Toulouse for yet another
  banquet given in honor of the queen and her son, Charles IX, then
  making the Grand Voyage de France [4]" [5]

She provides further citations from 1564 (Charles Estienne), Oliver
de Serres (undated in the text, but footnoted [4]), and our friend from
earlier, Lancelot de Casteau (1557), noting that he served it both
boiled and served with oysters and cardoons, and also roasted and
served cold.

In summary, while the secondary sources that I have here do not cite
primary sources for their earliest dates, it seems clear that by middle
of the 1500s, native american turkeys were served in England, France,
Spain and Germany.

My thanks to Joanne MacElhiney for doing all the work, so
all I had to do was write up the result.

	Mark Schuldenfrei (In the SCA, Tibor)

-------------
[1] _The_Fine_Art_of_Food_, Reay Tannahill, Folio Society 1968.

[2] This is described in Wilson's footnote 33, which is not reproduced in
    the pages I have.  Sorry.

[3] _Food_and_Drink_in_Britain:_From_the_Stone_Age_to_the_19th_Century_,
    C. Anne Wilson, Academy Chicago Publishers, 1991, Chicago IL 60610 USA,
    ISBN 0-89733-364-0.

[4] These are documented in Wheaton's footnotes 31-33, which I do not have.

[5] _Savoring_The_Past_, Barbara Ketcham Wheaton, University of Pennsylvania
    Press, 1983, ISBN 0-8122-1146-4.
--
Mark Schuldenfrei (schuldy@progress.com)
Newsgroups: rec.food.historic