At the end of
A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge flings open the windows of his darkened home, yelling to a boy passing by to purchase a prize turkey “twice the size of tiny Tim” to gift to his long-suffering employee Bob Cratchit and his family. In just a few sentences, Charles Dickens’ iconic tale helped to push the exotic turkey – which in Victorian times was far too expensive for an average family – to permanently replace the humble goose as the fashionable fowl of choice for Christmas lunch.
Only this holiday, most tables won’t be groaning under the weight of a humongous bird, child-size or otherwise. Thanks to the pandemic restrictions imposed this year, most people’s Christmases have been downsized, and so have their appetites: 2020 is officially the year of the tiny turkey.