We've turned some bits of Thanksgiving trivia into a holiday quiz. Answers are below.
Questions:
1. How many feathers does the average full-grown turkey have?
2. What percentage of Americans eat turkey on Thanksgiving?
3. How many cooks put the stuffing inside the turkey?
4. What state raises the most turkeys commercially?
5. What U.S president declared Thanksgiving a national holiday?
6. Name five things the Pilgrims ate at their first Thanksgiving dinner.
7. How big can a turkey get?
8. Who wanted the turkey to be America's national bird?
9. Are wild turkeys native to California?
10. Who wrote, "Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence"?
Answers:
1. 3.500 (before it's plucked, of course...)
2. More than 90 percent
3. About 50 percent
4. Minnesota (more than 46 million a year)
5. Abraham Lincoln
6. The menu for the first Thanksgiving in Plymouth, MA, is thought to have included lobster, rabbit, chicken, fish, squashes, beans, chestnuts, hickory nuts, onions, leeks, dried fruits, maple syrup and honey, radishes, cabbage, carrots, eggs and goat cheese ( but not turkey)
7. The heaviest turkey ever raised weighed 86 pounds, about the size of a large dog (but the average weight of a Thanksgiving dinner-table turkey is only 15 pounds)
8. Benjamin Franklin, who wrote in a letter to his daughter, "... the Turkey is in comparison [to the bald eagle] 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."
9. Yes and no. Wild turkeys were introduced into the state by the Californai Department of Fish & Game in the 1960s and '70s. However, turkey fossils — the same species as the modern-day wild turkey — have been found in the La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles.
10. Humorist Erma Bombeck
Don't miss a day of Piedmont news, opinion and events. Sign up for the Piedmont Patch e-newsletter here. And 'like' us on Facebook!
