TRIVIA ABOUT TURKEY AND ALL THE TRIMMINGS

Although Americans consider the Pilgrims’ feasts with the Indians in 1621 as the first Thanksgiving, the idea of celebrating the harvest is centuries old.

Because such a celebration marks the end of the growing season and the final gathering of the land’s bounty for the year, the holiday revolves around food. The Pilgrims’ first harvest festival in their new world featured native foods such as turkey, game, corn and squash.

Thanksgiving became an official holiday in 1863, when Abraham Lincoln established the fourth Thursday as the day of record. Over the years, aspects of the celebration have changed. Thanksgiving remains a home-centered holiday, although few families in the ’90s play games such as “Button, Button, Who’s Got the Button,” a traditional part of the holiday in the 19th century.

Turkey, cranberries,sweet potatoes and dishes such as stuffing and pumpkin pie remain the most traditional aspect of Thanksgiving. In honor of the harvest festival, here are some facts, tips and bits of trivia associated with these Thanksgiving staples:

Turkey

* Domesticated turkeys, descendants of fowl imported by the colonists from England, cannot fly. But native wild turkeys, whose numbers have increased in Connecticut, can fly for short distances up to 55 mph and can run 25 mph.

* Benjamin Franklin proposed the turkey as the official United States bird, but his choice lost to the bald eagle. Franklin regarded the turkey as a “much more respectable bird.”

* When Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin ate their first meal on the moon, they dined on roasted turkey and the trimmings, packaged in foil.

* The most popular way to eat turkey is in a sandwich.

* The comb is the bright red-violet and blue covering on top of the turkey’s head,and the wattle is the bright red appendage at the neck; the beard is a lock of black hair found on the chest of the male turkey.

* Per capita consumption of turkey in 1994 was a nice round 18 pounds.

* Last year, from Nov. 1 to Dec. 22, 13,355 callers to the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line (1-800-323-4848) asked home economists the same question: What is the best way to roast a turkey? But even more — 14,502 callers — wanted to know how to thaw the bird. (Directions for thawing and roasting a turkey appear on Page G2.)

Harvest vegetables

* Root vegetables such as onions and hard-shelled winter squash such as acorn and butternut were among the late harvest foods. They kept well in underground root cellars. Squash was one ingredient that often did double duty as a sweet or savory side dish and as the filling for a dessert pie.

Gravy:

* Flour, cornstarch or arrowroot may be used to thicken gravy. Cornstarch and arrowroot produce a clearer-looking sauce.

* Add cooked, chopped turkey giblets to the finished gravy, but skip the liver — it can add a bitter flavor.

* The amount of Pepperidge Farm Gravy sold during the holiday season weighs more than 1,200 times as much as Plymouth Rock and would fill an Olympic-size pool more than 1 1/2 times.

* Processed gravy must contain at least 25 percent meat stock or at least 6 percent meat by FDA regulation.

Stuffing:

* A “good stuffing” includes “two cups of bread crumbs and one of butter or minced suet, a little parsley finely shred, the quarter of a nutmeg grated, a teaspoonful of powdered lemon peel, all spice and salt” blended with beaten egg yolks. That 19th century recipe is described in a cookbook by Sarah Josepha Hale, a novelist and editor who also campaigned to make Thanksgiving a national holiday.

* To stuff or not to stuff? A stuffed turkey takes longer to roast, but the bird’s juices permeate the bread mixture, adding another level of flavor and moistness.

* Don’t stuff a turkey until you are ready to roast it. That moist dressing, packed into the cavity of the bird, can become a breeding ground for bacteria.

* The words “dressing” and “stuffing” are used interchangeably, although dressing was the preferred term in Victorian America.

* Oysters were a popular 19th century dressing ingredient. Cornbread is a popular stuffing base in the South; plain wheat bread in New England.

Cranberries:

* Dennis, Mass., was the site of the first recorded cranberry cultivation in 1816.

* A native North American fruit, the cranberry gets its name from Dutch and German settlers who called it “crane berry.” In spring, when the vines bloom, the pale pink blossoms resemble the head and bill of a crane. The name was shortened to cranberry.

* Cranberries enjoy growing conditions that most other plants can’t tolerate: acid soil, few nutrients and low temperatures. Growers flood the bogs just before harvesting.

* The best berries are ones that bounce. In one quality test, cranberries that bounce over a 4-inch high wooden barrier make it to market. Those that are bruised, soft or rotten have lost their spunk and roll right into a disposal bin.

* About 20 percent of the 340 million pounds of cranberries consumed annually by Americans are gobbled up Thanksgiving week.

* Give or take a couple of berries, there are about 450 cranberries in a pound.

Sweet potatoes/yams:

* What we call a “yam” and a sweet potato are really the same tuber. When Columbus brought the sweet potato from the West Indies to Spain, the Spanish used its native American name “batata.” The sweet potato’s scientific name is Ipomoea batatas.

* A true yam is a starchy, sweet, edible root grown in Africa.

* The sweet potato, an important crop in the South, is a staple in Southern and soul cooking and a traditional food on Thanksgiving menus.

* One baked sweet potato contains about twice the recommended daily allowance for vitamin A.

* Sweet potatoes should be kept at a cool temperature, between 55 and 60 degrees F. Refrigeration will change the flavor of the potato.

Pies

* An early 19th century Thanksgiving dinner always featured several varieties of pie, both sweet and savory. Dinner was served in a series of courses with chicken and turkey pies served before the main course of roast turkey.

* Mincemeat, pumpkin, apple and squash pies reflect the use of harvest ingredients.

* In her early 19th century cookbook, Sarah Josepha Hale shares the secret of perfect pumpkin pie: “In the country, where this real Yankee pie is prepared in perfection, ginger is almost always used with other spices [cinnamon or nutmeg and rosewater]. There, too, part cream, instead of milk is mixed with the pumpkin, which gives it a richer flavor.”

Cider

* Johnny Appleseed remains fixed in American folklore. Thanks to early apple-loving growers, 19th century New Englanders could choose from more varieties than available today.

* Cider became a staple drink among early settlers. It remains a fall tradition, although modern bottling techniques and refrigeration make it a year-round drink.

* A kettle of mulled cider offers two treats: an enticing aroma of spices and a hot, addictive beverage. To make spiced cider, heat one gallon of cider with 3/4 cup sugar (or to taste), 4 cinnamon sticks, 1 teaspoon whole allspice and 2 teaspoons whole cloves. Spices can be tied in a cheesecloth, if desired. Garnish with orange and lemon slices.

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Sources: Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc.; Butterball Turkey Talk-Line; Old Sturbridge Village; “The Dictionary of American Food and Drink” by John F. Mariani (Hearst, $19.95); “The Thanksgiving Book” by Jerome Agel,Melinda Corey and Jason Shulman (Dell, $8.95).