November 25, 2009
Happy Huexoloti Day Y’all
Yet another great food whose origins lie in Mexico, not Turkey as the misplaced name might lead you to think…
“The Aztecs had named these too-fat-for-flight birds huexoloti (Meleagris gallopavo). But that complicated moniker was virtually left behind on Central American terrains when some of these permanently grounded birds were transported to Spain and Portugal and beyond. As they came from what was thought to be the Indies somewhere near what became India, their initial names in Europe contained some form of the term “indi.” Even when they were quickly taken across the trade routes of the Mediterranean and pathways connecting the population centers of the Middle East, they retained a name that connected them to islands on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. It was only when some of their fattened offspring were transported from Islamic farms at the eastern end of the Mediterranean to England that they acquired an entirely new name that connected them with the Middle East and not with America. Bearing in England the name “turkey,” they were transshipped to pilgrim settlers in North America where they displaced their wild cousins and eventually became the favored Thanksgiving bird for virtually all Americans.”
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10 Responses to “Happy Huexoloti Day Y’all”
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I am so glad you shared this …and I now know it!
We do still call it that -well, some modified version of that. The actual word in spanish for turkey is ‘Guajolote’ pronounced: wah-ho-lo-te or the shorter ‘pavo’
Esther, in El Paso, turkeys are called coconos. I’ve never heard the word outside of El Paso. Do you know, is this a peculiar border idiom, or is it used elsewhere?
@Cindy I live in Juárez, México near El Paso. I never thought cocono were a idiom from ELP. First time I heard a person call a turkey cocono was a puerto rican guy, so I assumed that was the origin.
Nice post Derek. I’m gonna translate this post and publish it in my blog. Are we good?
Wild turkeys are hardly “too fat to fly” and are far from “permanently grounded” – they can take to wing quite well.
Here’s a video of them doing it quite well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1TlqSBgs3U
All my years in Mexico, I only remember pavo, mainly pavo en mole.
i’m sure many are sticking pavo-turkeys in the oven as we speak. i myself am thinking salmon. like when you are on a plane and everyone’s eating the same thing, and you go for the other option just in case…
Jorge, the original article is here: http://hnn.us/articles/120502.html. (i think i saw it originally linked from the Harper’s blog). So you’d probably want to ask Larry Tise or the History News Network about translating, that is, if you are translating the whole thing…
Cocono is new to me, too.
I have, however, heard guajolote, which Esther mentioned; in fact, I think it was the word I was taught in Spanish classes in school. Only when I traveled in Mexico did I begin to hear pavo.
I was running once in Central Park early in the morning and saw a wild turkey. That proves they are from the Americas.
Cindy found this cool dictionary of animal products (Dave should love it):
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/import_export/plants/manuals/ports/downloads/apm_pdf/a_f_spanish_words.pdf
I think maybe Cocono refers to a cooked turkey?