Up until the nineteenth century, mincemeat pie was the common Christmas feast in both North America and Europe, with preferred birds being pigeon, peacock, guinea hen, and goose.
Turkey was introduced from America to Europe by the Spanish in the sixteenth century.
The bird caught on big time in 1843 after Ebenezer Scrooge sent a turkey to Bob Cratchet in the Charles Dickens story A Christmas Carol.
That’s how the turkey became the traditional Christmas dinner.
