Our festive guest of honour

OUR CHRISTMAS traditions often have rather strange and obscure origins.

Why, for example, do so many people cook a turkey? And why, for that matter, is the bird called a turkey? I had a vague notion that I knew the answers to these questions but when I began to research in detail, I discovered it was a bit more complicated than I first thought.

There is a wild African bird called the Helmeted Guineafowl that bears some resemblance to a turkey, though it’s a good bit smaller and not closely related. These were imported into Europe in the late Middle Ages.