An illustration shows the procession of the boar’s head and massive pie filled with many kinds of wild game. Ivan Day calls it the turducken of its time.
Rich Preston
If you are eating turkey this Christmas out of some sense of tradition, food historian Ivan Day says, put down that drumstick. After studying 400-year-old English cookbooks, Day says the giant bird isn’t even that traditional. Besides, he says, “It’s a dry wasteland of flavorless meat.”
Sure, the first turkey came to England in the 1600s. It was an exotic “treat” from the New World. But a time-traveler from Shakespeare’s time wouldn’t understand why everyone in the modern world was having the same dull bird on Christmas night.
<img src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2014/01/28/51244622_sq-bfcff80c2732cff40e4bae8cab03bc2750943b75-s100.jpg" class="img100" title="Britain's King George I…