Is it Thanks Giving Day or Turkey Day?

Thanks Giving Day is celebrated in the US on November 26, 2009.Dinner is one of the main features of the Thanks Giving Day celebration. Of course, the main menu served or rather we can say that the key to the Thanks Giving Day dinner is the roasted or baked Turkey and Cranberry sauce.

Turkey plays such a predominant role on the dining table during the dinner of the Thanks Giving Day and so that day is even called as ‘Turkey Day’.

Recognizing the important role of Turkey as a traditional Thanks Giving Bird, three towns in the US have even taken the name of the bird: Turkey in Texas, Turkey Creek in Louisiana and Turkey in North Carolina.

However, in the earliest Thanks Giving Day that was celebrated in the year 1621 in the Plymouth colony, Turkey was not a menu in the dining table. Historians are not completely certain about the actual menu that adorned the dining table on that day. However, they are sure about two items on the menu and they were: venison and the wild fowl.

But modern Thanks Giving Day dinner in the US entirely revolve around Turkey.

Turkey being the chief menu on the Thanks Giving Day, they are sold as hot cakes on the eve of Thanks Giving Day. Hence, selling turkey is a great business that has a great marketing potential throughout the US.
The National Turkey Federation which is supervising the demand and supply of Turkey in the US has revealed quite interesting information about Turkey. Nearly 250 million Turkeys are raised in the year 2009 for slaughter whose worth is about $ 4.5 billions.

Of them, nearly 46 million birds come to the dining table and consumed during the dinner of the Thanks Giving Day. In a survey conducted by the National Turkey Federation nearly 88 % of Americans eat Turkey at the Thanks Giving Day dinner. The average weight of a Turkey bird that is purchased by an American is 15 pounds.
To raise Turkey chicks, an artificial insemination method is being followed in the Turkey farms since there is no scope for natural copulation and fertilization among them.

Minnesota is the top Turkey producing state followed by the states like North Carolina, Arkansas, Missouri, Virginia and California.

The Cranberry sauce is another notable menu on the dining table of the Thanks Giving Day dinner. According to the Cape Cod Cranberry Growers Association, Cranberry is one of the fruits that are entirely native to the North American soil, the other two fruits being blue berry and the Concord grape.

US farmers will produce 709 million pounds of Cranberries every year. The top producers of Cranberries are the States of Wisconsin and Massachusetts.

Both Turkey and Cranberry sauce forms the main menu and occupies a primary position in the dinner on the dining table during the Thanks Giving Day celebration in the US, mainly because, they are entirely native to the Americans.