More than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality [Paperback]

Karen Davis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 15, 2001 | ISBN-10: 1930051883 | ISBN-13: 978-1930051881

This scholarly and authoritative book examines the cultural and literal history, as well as the natural history and biological needs and concerns of turkeys. Davis explores how turkeys came to be seen as birds who were not only the epitome of failure or stupidity but also the suitable centerpiece of the celebration of freedom in America itself—Thanksgiving. She examines the many varieties of turkeys and uncovers the methods by which millions of turkeys are raised, fattened, and slaughtered on farms around America today.

Davis takes us back to European folklore about turkeys, the myths, fairytales, and downright lies told about turkeys and their habits and habitats. She shows how turkeys in the wild have complex lives and family units, and how they were an integral part of Native American and continental cultures and landscape before the Europeans arrived.

Finally, Davis draws conclusions about our paradoxical, complex, and "bestial" relationship not just with turkeys, but with all birds, and thus with all other animals. She examines how our treatment of animals shapes our other values about ourselves, our relationship with other human beings, and our attitude toward the land, nation, and the world.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Challenges all Americans to think about the values they want their annual family ritual to embody. -- Peter Singer, DeCamp Professor of Bioethics, Princeton University; author, Animal Liberation

I very much like this book for its sensitivity, its well-researched cultural history, its honesty and probing qualities. -- Gisela Kaplan, Full Professor, School of Biological Sciences, University of New England, Armidale, Australia

This is the kind of book that we need more of.... Davis cuts through the pyramid of lies. -- Jim Mason, VegNews , July/August 2002

About the Author

Karen Davis, Ph.D. is the President of United Poultry Concerns. She is the author of Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry. She lives in Machipongo, Virginia.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Lantern Books (November 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1930051883
• ISBN-13: 978-1930051881
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,279,006 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

KAREN DAVIS, PhD is the founder and president of United Poultry Concerns, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the compassionate and respectful treatment of domestic fowl. Founded in 1990, United Poultry Concerns addresses the treatment of domestic fowl in food production, science, education, entertainment, and human companionship situations. Karen has a PhD in English from the University of Maryland-College Park where she taught for twelve years in the English Department.

Karen Davis has essays in Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations (Duke UP, 1995), Terrorists or Freedom Fighters: Reflections on the Liberation of Animals (Lantern Books, 2004), Animal Liberation Philosophy and Policy Studies Journal Vol. 2, No. 2 (Center on Animal Liberation Affairs, 2005), and Encyclopedia of Animals and Humans (Greenwood, 2007). Her essay 'Procrustean Solutions to Animal Identity and Welfare Problems' is forthcoming in a collection published by SUNY Press.

At the University of Maryland Karen founded the Animal Rights Coalition in 1989, and she pioneered a course on the role of animals in the Western philosophic and literary tradition in the University of Maryland Honors Program. Karen is a featured speaker at the annual National Animal Rights and Taking Action for Animals conferences in Washington, DC and Los Angeles. On July 2, 2002, Karen was inducted into the U.S. Animal Rights Hall of Fame 'for outstanding contributions to animal liberation.'

On November 14, 1999, Karen Davis was profiled in 'For the Birds,' in The Washington Post, winner of the 1999 Ark Trust Genesis Award for Outstanding Newspaper Feature for 1999 (www.upc-online.org/991114wpost_karen_davis.html).

On November 14, 2000, Karen and United Poultry Concerns were featured on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Primetime TV show Witness, in 'Chickens are People Too,' produced by the Emmy-winning filmmaker, John Kastner. In 2002 Karen gave a presentation on 'The Beauty, Dignity & Abuse of Chickens' at the Yale University Chicken Conference, May 17-19.

On April 20, 2007, media celebrity Ira Glass, host of the popular Public Radio International program This American Life aired on NPR, appeared on Late Night with David Letterman where he told Letterman and millions of viewers that his visit to United Poultry Concerns' chicken sanctuary in 1998 led him to become a vegetarian. Karen Davis and UPC's sanctuary are currently featured in two major films on DVD: The Emotional World of Farm Animals narrated by Jeffrey Masson & frequently aired on NPR; and Animal People: The Humane Movement in America produced by Gary Kaskel and United Action for Animals in 2007.

Since 1999, Karen and UPC have hosted eight annual conferences on farmed animal advocacy issues. March 24-25, 2007. In March 2008, Karen and UPC hosted a conference on farmed animal and vegetarian advocacy issues in Virginia.

Karen is the author of several books including A Home for Henny (a children's book published by UPC); Instead of Chicken, Instead of Turkey: A Poultryless 'Poultry' Potpourri (a cookbook published by the Book Publishing Co.); Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs: An Inside Look at the Modern Poultry Industry (Book Publishing Co.); More Than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality (Lantern Books); and The Holocaust and the Henmaid's Tale: A Case for Comparing Atrocities (Lantern Books). The New Revised Edition of Karen's landmark book Prisoned Chickens, Poisoned Eggs will be out in 2009.

www.upc-online.org/karenbio.htm
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unique Look at a "Food" Animal, July 23, 2003

By 

Kelly A. Garbato "www.easyvegan.info" (Kearney, MO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: More than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality (Paperback)

"More Than a Meal" is an incredible book, examining not just the nature of the turkey (behavior, intelligence, emotions, etc.), but also our cultural construction of it. Ms. Davis eloquently describes the many ways in which the turkey is dehumanized and demeaned in modern society. Such atrocities go far beyond the obvious (farming and killing turkeys for food), at times bordering on the ridiculous (for instance, the annual presidential pardoning of a Thanksgiving turkey that will soon die prematurely anyway, as it was bred for grotesquely rapid growth that its body cannot withstand). She also delves into the human psyche, in a quest to figure out just why we hate this particular bird so (yet schizophrenically honor it every fall).

Karen Davis is an asset to the animal rights community. While anti-ARAs may disparage her with childish nicknames (Karen "Bird Brain" Davis is a popular one), Ms. Davis is clearly deserving of her PhD. She's an excellent writer, transforming what at first glance might be a mundane subject into a fascinating examination of our dysfunctional attitudes towards the nonhuman animals with which we share this planet. "More Than a Meal" is a must-read for anyone interested in the humane treatment of animals.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More Than a Monograph, March 3, 2002

By 

"pattrice" (Princess Anne, MD USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: More than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality (Paperback)

In her latest book, United Poultry Concerns President Karen Davis goes well beyond the basics when it comes to "talking turkey." As would be expected, Davis provides a wealth of facts about turkeys in their natural state and about the perverse abuses against turkeys perpetrated by hunters and on factory farms. Davis also shares many of her own often quite moving experiences living with and caring for turkeys. But Davis also dares to go deeper, probing the sociological and psychological meanings of such rituals as turkey shoots, turkey drops, and the thanksgiving dinner. Probably, most readers will be shocked to learn about spectacles of humiliation performed by modern communities in the name of "good clean fun" and about the everyday brutalities practiced by the poultry industry. Surely, every reader will be provoked to think hard about the often quite subtle arguments Davis puts forward concerning such issues as the oddly sexualized manner in which hunters of wild turkeys interact with their prey. Whether or not you think you will end up agreeing with Davis, you should read this book to learn more about an important American symbol and exercise your mind at the same time.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-read during Thanksgiving...and beyond., October 26, 2002

By 

Melanie "mongoliamel" (Cass Lake, MN, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: More than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality (Paperback)

When it comes to the other species with whom we share this planet, humans are often ignorant and lacking compassion. This characterization is also one that humans have tried to place on turkeys. Frequently this remarkable animal is wrongly portrayed as stupid and clumsy. Part of the reason for these incorrect descriptions of the turkey has to do with our species having cruelly bred this animal for fast growth and unnaturally large size. Turkeys' dependence on humans is often cited when people state that these birds are not intelligent. However, Karen Davis points out in her book More Than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality that these animals are dependent on humans for survival because we have made them so. By breeding fast growing, overweight turkeys we have created birds who are unable to walk fast or fly into trees and who commonly experience "lameness, respiratory congestion, mating infirmities, and heart disease, and most have white feathers that prevent them from camouflaging themselves." Besides intelligence, Davis offers fine examples to illustrate that turkeys are good parents and very protective of their young.
If human animals are going to begin respecting and living in harmony with nonhuman animals, we must learn about these animals and treat them with the compassion and respect all species deserve. We must also learn from our mistakes and cruel past and start righting these wrongs. In More Than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality, Karen Davis provides considerable knowledge on these fascinating animals and our deplorable relationship with them.--Reviewed by N. Glenn Perrett