(adapted from my book, Tingling tastes.)
Turkey
הוֹדוּ לְתַרְנְגוֹל, הוֹדוּ!
הַכּוּ, עַל חָזֶה הַכּוּ!
הִתְוַדּוּ, כִּי אֲכַלְתֶּם לֹבֶן בְּשָׂרוֹ, הִתְוַדּוּ!
Dripping giblets of the gobbler,
And afterwards some cobbler
Confessing to murder on the altar
גָאֹה גָּאָה הַתַּרְנְגוֹל
אַךְ חָזֵהוּ הָעֲסִיסִי רָצִינוּ לֶאֱכֹל
שְׁחַטְנוּהוּ,
וּמִמִּי נְבַקֵּשׁ עַל פְּשָׁעַי מְחוֹל!
The proud rooster cuckolded
Led to the range blindfolded
No mercy as we feast upon thirty breasts of gold
Study Notes
Even though I only eat turkey once a year on Thanksgiving, I still manage to feel badly about it, though not quite as badly as this hyperbolic poem implies. I don’t beat my chest and maim myself, as one does when confessing sins on the High Holidays.
It’s not clear to me why Jews don’t leave the turkey alone. Turkey shouldn’t even be kosher. According to most Jewish legal sources, the process of determining which birds are kosher is based on oral tradition. There was no tradition applicable to the “New World” turkey. I suspect that the rabbis enjoyed the white meat so much that they decided to give tradition a pass and just dug in with their forks and knives.
