Overview
- Comparative lists from Chef’s Pencil note that turkey dominates in the United States, Canada and much of Europe, yet many Latin American countries favor other dishes on Christmas Eve.
- Regional examples include pork in Argentina and Paraguay, sopa picana in Bolivia, tamales in Venezuela and Colombia, asado in Uruguay, and pepperpot in Guyana, with Suriname lacking a single widely cited signature dish.
- In Peru, turkey commonly shares the table with panetón, and Taste Tomorrow data cited in reports ranks Peru as the world’s top panetón consumer at roughly 34,000 tons a year, about 1.1 kilograms per person.
- Historically, turkeys were domesticated in Mesoamerica by cultures such as the Aztecs and Maya before being taken to Europe after Spanish contact, where they entered major religious feasts.
- Practical factors—large size of roughly 8–10 kilograms and a relatively short fattening cycle—helped establish turkey for large gatherings, and it remains central to Thanksgiving in the United States and Canada.