Thanksgiving Turkey
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90 free Thanksgiving Turkey trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free Thanksgiving turkey trivia questions with answers. Think you know everything about Thanksgiving turkey? Test your knowledge with our engaging trivia quiz covering history, traditions, and fun facts about America's favorite holiday bird. Whether you're a turkey expert or just curious about Thanksgiving traditions, this quiz will entertain and educate you.
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Q 01Nasaump, a Native porridge the Plymouth colonists adopted, was made by boiling what?
Cornmeal
Cornmeal: Roger Williams recorded nasaump in 1643 as a 'meale pottage', and the English shortened the word to 'samp' for their own boiled corn dish.
Q 02The name 'turkey' was first used in English for which African bird, before the American bird took it?
Guineafowl
Guineafowl came first: Europeans tied the African bird to Turkey and called it the 'turkey-cock', and the name passed to the American bird when the two were confused.
Q 03Which is the only US state with no wild turkeys?
Alaska
Alaska is the lone holdout: after World War II, wildlife agencies trapped wild birds and moved them into restored habitat until every other state had turkeys again.
Q 04To kill bacteria, what minimum internal temperature must every part of a cooked turkey, and any reheated leftovers, reach?
165°F (74°C)
165°F (74°C) is the USDA bar for all poultry, measured with a thermometer, and reheated leftovers must hit the same mark.
Q 05Which turkey bone do two diners traditionally pull apart for luck?
Wishbone
The wishbone, anatomically the furcula, was called the 'merrythought' when the pulling custom arose in the early 1600s; the name wishbone only caught on in the 19th century.
Q 06Which part of a roast turkey is dark meat?
Thigh
The thigh is dark meat because the legs do the bird's walking, while the little-used breast muscles stay pale; ducks and geese, which fly far, have dark breasts too.
Q 07Which US president made the presidential turkey pardon an official annual tradition?
George H.W. Bush
George H.W. Bush made it official in 1989, his first year, declaring the bird 'granted a presidential pardon'; turkeys had been sent off to farms for years, but nobody had made the pardon official.
Q 08What do cooks call the packet of offal tucked inside a supermarket turkey?
Giblets
Giblets are the edible organs packed inside the cavity, usually with the neck; they go into stock or gravy, though the liver is often left out because its strong flavour dominates.
Q 09Which state raises more farm turkeys than any other, and leads in sugar beets too?
Minnesota
Minnesota raises roughly 40 million turkeys a year, more than any other state, and also leads the country in sugar beets, sweet corn and peas grown for processing.
Q 10Which naturalist gave the wild turkey its scientific name, Meleagris gallopavo, in 1758?
Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus named it in 1758, and every farm turkey is a domesticated form of that same wild bird, not a separate species.
Q 11Which amino acid in turkey is wrongly blamed for post-Thanksgiving drowsiness?
Tryptophan
Tryptophan levels in turkey are comparable with other meats; a heavy meal rich in carbohydrates is a likelier culprit for the post-dinner slump.
Q 12What is the fleshy flap over a male turkey's beak that changes size and colour with his mood?
Snood
The snood is more than decoration: in experiments, females chose to mate with long-snooded males, and rival males backed down from them.
Q 13Which method cooks a whole turkey fastest, at about three to four minutes a pound?
Deep-frying
Deep-frying wins: at three to four minutes a pound in hot oil, a 15-pound bird is done in about an hour, against three hours or more in the oven.
Q 21Which herb is the classic seasoning in the stuffing for a roast turkey?
Sage
Sage is the classic stuffing herb, but it was grown for centuries as a medicine as well as a seasoning: its Latin name, salvia, comes from salvus, 'healthy'.
Q 22What grounds fully grown commercial turkeys, though their wild cousins fly well?
Their sheer size
Their sheer size grounds them: the heaviest commercial birds are too heavy for their wings, while younger and smaller domestic turkeys can still manage short flights.
Q 23Which breed has dominated US meat-turkey production since the 1960s?
Broad Breasted White
Q 14What is the term for a very young turkey?
Poult
Poult is the word for a young turkey; it is a clipped form of the Old French poulet, a diminutive of poule, 'hen'.
Q 15Which Founding Father called the bald eagle 'a bird of bad moral character' and privately preferred the turkey?
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin wrote it to his daughter Sarah Bache in 1784; there is no evidence he ever publicly proposed the turkey as the national bird, so the preference lives only in that private letter.
Q 16What is the name for soaking a turkey in salt water before roasting to keep it juicy?
Brining
Brining seasons the bird and helps it hold moisture, so the whole turkey can cook through without the white meat drying out.
Q 17Which wild turkey subspecies is the most abundant in the United States?
Eastern
Eastern: now the most abundant subspecies, though hunting and land clearing once emptied much of its range, until wildlife agencies trapped wild birds and moved them back in.
Q 18Which bird do the Cratchits feast on in A Christmas Carol, before Scrooge sends them a prize turkey?
Goose
Goose: the Cratchits marvel that 'there never was such a goose', and on Christmas morning the reformed Scrooge pays a boy to fetch them the prize turkey.
Q 19In which month do Canadians sit down to their Thanksgiving turkey?
October
October: the second-Monday date was fixed only in 1957; through the 1920s, Canada's Thanksgiving shared a November Monday with Armistice Day.
Q 20From roughly how far away can a male wild turkey's spring call be heard?
A mile
A mile is about the limit; males call in spring to attract females and to answer rival males.
The Broad Breasted White took over in the 1960s from the Broad Breasted Bronze it was bred from; selected for a huge breast, commercial birds often top 40 pounds.
Q 24What is the common term for the fatty, triangular piece of skin at the base of a turkey's tail?
Pope's nose
The pope's nose, also called the parson's nose or bishop's nose, is the uropygium: fatty skin built around fused tail vertebrae called the pygostyle.
Q 25What is the tuft growing from the centre of a male turkey's breast called?
Beard
The beard is a tuft of modified feathers growing from the breast; it grows continuously through the bird's life, and roughly one hen in ten sprouts a shorter one too.
Q 26Which bird is a close genetic relative of the turkey?
Pheasant
A 2007 genomic study placed turkeys firmly inside the pheasant family after years of being treated as their own family, Meleagrididae.
Q 27What is basting a roasting turkey meant to do?
To keep the meat moist and add flavour
Basting is meant to keep the meat moist and add flavour by spooning pan juices over the skin; done badly it backfires, since every oven-door opening drops the temperature.
Q 28What type of habitat do wild turkeys typically prefer?
Forests with openings
Forests with openings, hardwood or mixed conifer-hardwood, suit them: cover among the trees, with food in nearby pastures, fields and orchards.
Q 29Which soup company's test kitchen created the green bean casserole in 1955?
Campbell's
Campbell's test kitchen came up with it in 1955 around a can of the company's cream of mushroom soup, and the dish became a Thanksgiving fixture.
Q 30Why is white plumage the norm on domestic turkeys?
Pin feathers show less on the carcass
Pin feathers show less on the carcass: white birds leave pale stubs after plucking, whereas bronze and brown-feathered varieties, still raised in small numbers, leave dark spots that buyers dislike.