It's Thanksgiving Day and today we celebrate the bounty on our tables by learning about the origins of the some of the foods that make the holiday meal. Wisconsin Foodie host Kyle Cherek says that much of what we serve today actually originated on this side of the Atlantic. "Maize (corn), potatoes, tomatoes, pumpkins, peppers, blueberries, gourds, wild rice... and turkeys. And that's just the tip of the iceberg," he says. Cherek notes the Europeans did contribute, introducing the "new world" to such things as pigs, oats, wheat, apples, sugarcane, coffee, almonds, carrots, beets, and cherries. But when it comes to the traditional Thanksgiving meal, the European contributions are the support to the Americas' main course offering - the turkey. "It's a very American bird to have," says Cherek. "When the Spanish arrived in what is now Central America around 1500 they found turkeys." Some of those birds returned to Europe on those ships and became a key livestock animal across the continent.
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