I’m still not used to retail life around the holidays. I feel a little like I’ve been aboard the Millennium Falcon for the last six week, Hyperspacing (if that’s a verb) from planet to planet of work, family, and friends, just holding on tight so I don’t fly right through a holiday Turkey, or bounce to close to a Christmas present.
Read MoreIt turns out that the answer to the great Turkey Mystery is both simple, and complex; truthful, and full of lies; steeped in history, and intentionally fabricated. In other words…entirely American.
The earliest accounts of turkey eating date back way before the pilgrims broke bread with the Wampanoag at Plymouth Rock. The fossil record shows that turkeys originated in North America about five million years ago.
Read MoreThe feedlot became popular in the 1950s and 60s. With soaring beef demand, surplus subsidized grain, and cheap growth hormones and antibiotics, American ranchers turned away from the millennia-old habit of raising free-range cattle on open grassland, and instead replaced it with faster, more predictable, and more profitable mechanized feedlots. The concept caught on quickly.
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