天冷了，吃火鸡如何？关于感恩节，你不知道的几件事（双语）

    很多人都已经知道，对于美国人来说，每年11月的第4个星期四非常重要，因为那天是感恩节（Thanksgiving Day），要吃火鸡。

    你可能已经摩拳擦掌，准备好明晚和朋友们来一顿火鸡大餐了。

    然后呢？关于感恩节的知识储备是不是用光了？

    那吃火鸡的时候，准备跟国际友人聊点什么？

    赶紧来恶补一下关于感恩节的小知识吧~争取明晚成为话题王。

In 1953, someone at Swanson severely overestimated the amount of turkey Americans would consume that Thanksgiving. With 260 tons of frozen birds to get rid of, a company salesman named Gerry Thomas ordered 5,000 aluminum trays, recruited an assembly line of women armed with spatulas and ice-cream scoops and began creating mini-feasts of turkey, corn-bread dressing, peas and sweet potatoes — creating the first-ever TV dinner. Thomas later said he got the idea from neatly packaged airplane food.

    1953年，斯旺森食品公司的某人严重高估了美国人在感恩节消费的火鸡数量。为了摆脱260吨的冷冻禽肉，一位名叫格里·托马斯的公司销售员订购了5000个铝制托盘，招募了一批生产线女工，配备铲子和冰淇淋勺子，开始制作火鸡、玉米面包酱、豌豆和红薯的迷你盛宴——创造了有史以来首例冰冻简餐（也称电视餐——懒人福音）。托马斯后来说，他的想法是从包装整齐的飞机餐中得到的。

Thanksgiving is ruled by two very powerful f-words: "food" and "football". Nearly as old as the sport itself, the tradition of watching football on Thanksgiving began in 1876, when the newly formed American Intercollegiate Football Association held its first championship game. Less than a decade later, more than 5,000 club, college and high school football teams held games on Thanksgiving, with match-ups between Princeton and Yale drawing more than 40,000 fans out from their dining rooms. 

1934 marked the first NFL game held on Thanksgiving when the Detroit Lions took on the Chicago Bears. The Lions have played on Thanksgiving ever since — except, of course, when the team was called away to serve during World War II.

    感恩节是由两个F开头的字组成的：食物food和橄榄球football。从1876年美国橄榄球联盟开始举办首届联赛开始，在感恩节就有看橄榄球赛的传统——几乎和这项运动本身的历史一样长。其后不到十年的时间内，更有超过5000所俱乐部、大学和高中的橄榄球队在这一天举行比赛。其中普林斯顿和耶鲁的比赛更是吸引了超过4万名球迷到场观看。

    1934年，超级碗首次在感恩节当天举行比赛，那天是由底特律雄狮对阵芝加哥熊。雄狮队自此每遇感恩节都有比赛——除了二战期间队员们服役才中断过。

The annual White House tradition of pardoning a turkey before Thanksgiving began in 1947, when President Harry Truman took pity on one lucky fowl. Other historians say the practice began during the 1860s, when Abraham Lincoln granted a pardon to a pet turkey belonging to his son, Tad. The tradition may alleviate some of America's guilt, but it doesn't stop them from slaughtering more than 46 million turkeys for the holiday. Even so, as Alaska Governor Sarah Palin proved during an interview in her hometown, Americans prefer public acts of mercy to massacres.

    感恩节前，由总统在白宫“赦免”一只火鸡的传统始于1947年，当时是由杜鲁门总统放生了一只幸运的火鸡。还有一些历史学家认为这一传统起源于1860年，林肯总统释放了一只由他儿子养的宠物火鸡。这一传统也许减轻了某些美国人的负罪感，但仍旧无法湮灭他们一年吃掉460万只火鸡的事实。即便如此，就如阿拉斯加议员Sarah Palin在一次采访中提到的那样：相对于大屠杀，美国人还是更喜欢公众场合的慈善行为。

Thanks to the culinary genius of Louisiana (or Wyoming or South Carolina — each region has staked its claim), more and more Americans are forsaking Butterballs for Turduckens. A what? Picture this: a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken. It's like a Russian nesting doll only with poultry. One store in Louisiania claims to ship more than 5,000 turduckens the week before the feast. Though this may seem like sacrilege to some, the original Thanksgiving meal featured fish, oysters, eel and lobster as well as wild turkey. Other modern pilgrims settle for a tofu version ("tofurkey") or the wildly dangerous "deep-fried turkey".

    得益于路易斯安那的烹饪天才(或是怀俄明、或是南卡罗来纳——每个地区都声称这是自己创造的)，越来越多的美国人需要鸭子来烹饪“火鸡鸭”了。什么？火鸡鸭！是的，一只鸡套在鸭子里、再套进火鸡——就像俄罗斯套娃那样！路易斯安那的一家店声称他们在节前一周卖出了5000份火鸡鸭。可能对有的人来说是种亵渎，但事实上，最原始的感恩节大餐是由鱼、生蚝、鳗、龙虾和野生火鸡组成的。其他现代人也吃用豆腐做的火鸡(豆火鸡)，或是很危险的“炸火鸡”。

Three towns have been named after the holiday's starring player — Turkey, Texas, Turkey Creek, L.A. and Turkey, N.C — each with less than 500 residents. Legend has it that the pheasant's name came from the wayward traveler Christopher Columbus, who thought he was in India when he arrived in "The New World" and, hence, dubbed the pheasant a "tuka," an Indian term for peacock. The name stuck.

    全美有三个不到500人的小镇是由“火鸡”命名的：德克萨斯的火鸡镇；洛杉矶的火鸡湾和北卡罗来纳的火鸡镇。据传说，探险家哥伦比亚到新大陆的时候一位自己到了印度，于是把这种鸟(就是火鸡)命名为“tuka”——印度语里的孔雀。于是火鸡的名字就这么延续下来了。

    掌握了一些新知识，是不是开心地又能多吃几口火鸡肉了？向“老友Joey”学习，放纵地吃上一回！吃的同时，不要忘了感恩生命给予的一切美好哦。