Comments & Curiosities:

Seriously? Thursday is Thanksgiving? I don’t see how that’s possible. But it is, apparently, and you and I and just about everyone will have to deal with it. Checking the T-Day folder, we find that in years past we have done the history of Thanksgiving; how to prepare a traditional Thanksgiving dinner; how not to; how to prepare a traditional Italian Thanksgiving dinner; and what to do with T-Day leftovers. This year, given everything that’s going on in the nation and the world, it is time to examine what Thanksgiving really means, why it matters, and what we need to keep in mind as we approach another annual day of thanks.

I believe it all comes down to three issues: Are turkeys really dumb? What is the difference between sweet potatoes and yams, and which is which? When you feel like you’re going to do a face-plant in the mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving dinner, is it the turkey that causes that?

On the dumbness issue, no one has ever claimed that turkeys are the brightest bulbs on the tree, but generally they get a bad rap. When someone is dissing turkeys, the two most common “turkeys are so dumb” punch lines are that just a loud noise on a turkey ranch will panic them into a stampede and they will crush each other to death, and that turkeys will stare straight up in a heavy rain and stay that way until they drown. Fact or fiction? The first is mostly fiction but has a grain of truth in it. The second is pure fiction.

No question that ranch-bred turkeys are skittish. Their wiring is not good and they are nervous, tightly wound creatures. If they made Valium for turkeys, the chubby little things would pop them like birdseed. They are also very prone to seizures and heart attacks, believe it or not. Yes, a loud noise can cause them to stampede, but the casualties left behind don’t die in the crush — they drop dead of a heart attack. Happens often during a violent thunderstorm or beneath a sonic boom. They are very stressed out birds.

Staring up at the rain until they drown? Nonsense. In fact, this myth is also related to bad wiring. Turkeys have a genetic condition called tetanic torticollar spasms. Tetanic torticollar spasms were first discovered in a pet turtle on the Titanic whose little shirt was too tight. That’s not true. I made that up. The condition causes a number of strange behaviors, including a muscle spasm that pulls their heads back and leaves them looking straight up at the sky for as long as 30 seconds, which might explain how the drowning in the rain myth started.

Let’s say a turkey out in the rain has one of those embarrassing tetanic torticollar spasms. What comes with rain every now and then? Holy cat, you are smart — thunder and lightning. Thunder goes kaboom, turkey vapor locks, and the story spreads about a turkey that was “so dumb he stared at the rain until he drowned” — an unfair, insensitive tale that demeans turkeys everywhere.

And that brings us to the sweet potatoes vs. yams question, which is fascinating, assuming there is like nothing whatsoever going on in your life. Everyone who has ever been in a produce department knows that sweet potatoes are the pale yellow ones and yams are the burnt orange ones, except as it turns out — everyone is wrong. Brace yourself, but they are both sweet potatoes.

The odds are that you have never seen a real yam, never bought one, cooked one or tasted one. Sweet potatoes come from Central and South America. True yams come from Africa and look like sugar cane on steroids, with a rough, ridged dark brown skin. They have nothing whatsoever to do with sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes can be a variety of colors inside and out, and the two kinds that you or I or Sylvia Hatton are used to seeing — pale yellow and burnt orange — just happen to be the most popular to American taste, but they are both sweet potatoes. OK, fine. But how did that totally faux yam in the produce department get to be called a yam?

By the time African slaves were brought here, a variety of sweet potatoes were being farmed in the South. The burnt orange ones reminded them of the yams they knew back home, which they called “nyami,” which was soon shortened to “yam.”

By the way, to try to cut down the confusion (it hasn’t worked) the U.S. Department of Agriculture requires that boxes labeled “yams” must also include “sweet potatoes” somewhere on the label.

Finally, when everyone slips into a food coma within minutes of the big T-Day dinner being over, is it the bird that causes that? Not really. It’s something called “L-Tryptophan” — an enzyme that makes you sleepy.

A myth has arisen lately that the big bird, and we’re not talking about Big Bird, is chock full of L-Tryptophan. Not true. Turkey has a trace of L-Tryptophan, but carbohydrates are absolutely packed with the stuff. Carbohydrates and Thanksgiving dinner ring a bell? Buns, spuds, pies? Case closed. Someone get Aunt Jessie out of the green beans and into the living room.

So there you have it — turkeys, L-Tryptophan and West African nyami. It’s what Thanksgiving is all about. Just be thankful none of this is worth remembering. I gotta go.

PETER BUFFA is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column runs Sundays. He may be reached at [email protected].