Tiki Culture

The pop culture movement of leisure, escapism, and fantasy that’s light on authenticity.

The word “Tiki” comes from the Maori name for the first man of creation. Tiki also became the name of human-like figures carved in wood or stone in the Polynesian Triangle, from New Zealand to Hawaii to Easter Island.

By the mid 20th century the Tiki name got borrowed, like so many other cultural ideas, and blended together in America to create Tiki culture.

people from around the Polynesian triangle — The peoples of the Polynesian Triangle have similar but different cultures. Tiki culture has borrowed from them all.

Set sail for fantasy

Tiki is escapism. It’s a South Seas fantasy of jungles, volcanos, rum drinks, palm trees, bamboo, headhunter skulls, the limbo, little umbrellas, leis, sand, surf, ukuleles, Hawaiian shirts, pineapples, parrots, blowfish, coconuts, Moai, and more. Tiki does not look to be authentic to any particular culture but creates something new borrowing from around the world.

To create this fantasy Tiki got its start, appropriately, in Hollywood. The founding father of Tiki was illegal rum bootlegger (and later WWII veteran) Ernest Raymond Gantt, aka “Donn Beach” aka “Don the Beachcomber”. In 1933 at the end of Prohibition, Beach created the world’s first Tiki bar “Don’s Beachcomber”. The bar’s decor of bamboo, rattan furniture, tiki torches, palm leaves, glass floats, Polynesian art, etc. set the template for all Tiki bars to follow.

Don Beach, the father of tiki — Donn Beach, the founding father of Tiki. Beach created the template all other Tiki bars have followed.

Over time competing Tiki bars around Los Angeles would hire local Hollywood art directors to help design increasingly more fantastic interiors – like stepping onto a movie set, a Tiki bar would whisk you away from reality. Also, working the other direction, Beach was sometimes hired by film studios to advise on movies set in the South Pacific.

Beyond the visual Beach’s other major contribution to Tiki was the drinks.

The Zombie, Three Dots & A Dash, Dr. Funk, Cobra’s Fang …

Don’s Beachcomber invented a fun illustrated menu of mixed drinks with exciting names such as the Zombie, Three Dots & A Dash, Navy Grog, and others which have become Tiki bar staples. The Mai Tai, another legendary Tiki drink, is generally credited to Trader Vic’s of Oakland, CA. A competitor of Don’s Beachcomber, Trader Vic’s was opened in 1934 by Victor Bergeron and has become an international chain of Tiki restaurants (which also inspired the theme & name of the grocery store Trader Joe’s).

Beach referred to his mixed drink creations as his “Rhum Rhapsodies”. They were based on the basic recipe concept of the Planter’s Punch which combines sour, sweet, strong alcohol, and water. Some restaurateurs would code their cocktail recipes to prevent competitors from stealing their best ideas. That said most Tiki cocktails are Cuban & Jamaican inspired, they use rum as their alcohol of choice, and their recipes eventually got out. Specialized ceramic Tiki mugs, carved like Tiki sculptures, helped set restaurants apart from one another while also becoming sought-after collectibles.

Tiki across mid-century pop culture — Tiki boomed in popularity in mid-century pop culture.

Bali Ha’i and Kon-Tiki

Despite starting in the 1930s Tiki really took off in the 1940s as WWII veterans came back from the Pacific. Tiki allowed them to idealize the good parts of their time in the Pacific and forget the bad. James Michener’s 1947 Tales of the South Pacific, and later the Broadway musical, were hugely influential in popularizing a romanticized idea of the Pacific islands. Thor Heyerdahl’s raft adventure sailing across the Pacific Ocean in 1947 (… in support of his racist ideas about Polynesians), and the subsequent bestseller novel The Kon-Tiki Expedition, gave a sense of adventure to Tiki culture.

Tiki’s popularity grew rapidly around the world. With Hawaiian statehood in 1959, and widely available commercial aviation, more tourists got to experience tropical destinations. Munich’s Oktoberfest in 1959 had a Hawaiian Village area. Trader Vic’s franchised by partnering with Hilton Hotels, operating as many as 25 locations at once. Restaurateur Stephen Crane created the Tiki chain Kon-Tiki in partnership with Sheraton Hotels.

Tiki also appeared in entertainment. Elvis had three Hawaii-based movies (and later he had the “Jungle Room” in his Graceland home). Disney created Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room attraction in 1963 and later Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort (the resort where John Lennon signed the paperwork officially ending The Beatles). Television gave us McHale’s Navy, Gilligan’s Island, Hawaii Five-0. Tiki and all things tropical were found across pop culture.

Tiki’s rum drinks, the visual spectacle, and the sense of exotic adventure created an environment of looser social mores allowing repressed Westerners an outlet to cut loose.

Modern tiki — Tiki’s second act has brought Tiki back into pop culture.

The tide goes out, and comes back

The tide changed for Tiki in the late 1960s / early 1970s. Young baby boomers saw Tiki as increasingly uncool and associated it with their parents’ generation. The grass huts and jungle themes were becoming reminiscent of the Vietnam War. The kitsch ornamentation, the spectacle, the recreational leisure wear – Tiki became embarrassing and began to die off.

The 1990s saw the tide come back for Tiki. The children of the baby boomers began to embrace what their parents had rejected. Hipsters gravitated towards Tiki culture. Early websites and message boards helped nascent Tiki fans learn more and make friends. New Tiki bars began to open as well as renewed interest in the originals who had managed to stay afloat.

Authenticity

With Tiki culture’s second act came a critical reevaluation of Tiki overall. Tiki is not an authentic depiction of any particular culture. Its an appropriation of Polynesian imagery, Caribbean inspired drinks, dressed-up Cantonese food, Congolese masks, a mythologizing of “noble savages” and the exoticism of Pacific Islander peoples. Tiki is a problematic blending of completely disparate cultures where the only unifying element is seemingly the “exotic” colonialist view Westerners had of them all.

Like the Irish pub-in-a-box Tiki bars focus on creating a fun environment not an authentic one. It’s an illusion, a fantasy, a melange of ideas that offer a break from your office cubicle and ordinary life. Perhaps it’s best if one goes in with eyes wide open knowing they aren’t about to see anything authentic to Polynesian culture.

That said some new Tiki bars are considering the history of Tiki as they design new experiences. Subgenres of Tiki exist such as “nautical” or “straw bars” that have some of the feeling of Tiki bars but without some of the appropriated Polynesian imagery.

Added info: The Tiki Room at Disneyland was the park’s first air conditioned attraction. This was for the comfort of the guests but also because the system that ran all of the animatronics ran so hot the attraction had to be cooled down.

A documentary on the history of Tiki culture.

Another documentary, in two parts, about the history of Tiki.

Ea-nasir’s Bad Copper Ingots

The timeless appeal of the world’s oldest customer complaint.

Around 1750 BCE a customer named Nanni was purchasing copper ingots from Ea-nasir, a Mesopotamian copper dealer. However, Ea-nasir tried to give Nanni poorer quality ingots than he had ordered. After the fact Nanni wrote an angry cuneiform complaint letter and sent it to Ea-nasir. It turns out this wasn’t Ea-nasir’s only customer complaint.

The ancient city of Ur, where Ea-nasir lived, was first excavated in 1853-54 but a later excavation by Sir Charles Woolley in 1922-34 unearthed the Nanni complaint letter among others. For example another customer named Arbituram also wrote to Ea-nasir complaining about poor quality copper. The letters, which are actually clay tablets, were found in what is thought to be Ea-nasir’s home.

Today the Nanni letter is object 1953,0411.71 at the British Museum and The Guinness Book of World Records has deemed it the Oldest written customer complaint. This fairly forgettable commonplace correspondence went relatively unnoticed until 2015 when the internet got a hold of it.

Letter to Ea-nasir — The tablet is on display at the British Museum. On the right is the translation by A. Leo Oppenheim.

Poor copper memes

In 2015 a photo of the tablet on display at the British Museum, along with an English translation of the tablet, was uploaded to Reddit. People found it humorous and from there they were off & running with jokes and memes.

The “Complaint Tablet to Ea-nasir” is now its own meme category, there are a host of products available on Amazon making fun of Ea-nasir’s bad copper ingots, a 3D printed recreation of the tablet is on Etsy, there’s a product idea to make a Lego version of the tablet, Ea-nasir’s house can be found on Google Maps, etc. The legacy of Ea-nasir and his bad copper ingots have long outlived the legacy of the merchants selling good copper ingots (or selling anything else for that matter).

memes of the complaint to Ea-nasir — Like many memes, the Complaint Tablet to Ea-nasir memes are now memes within memes, references within references.

Times change, people don’t

Perhaps the humor lies in the anachronistic nature of the complaint – that nobody today would complain about something using a cuneiform clay tablet. But there is also the universal appeal that even as times and technology change, human nature is the same. People 3,800 years ago were complaining about shady businesses just like we do today. Times change but humans don’t.

Van Halen and Brown M&Ms

Instead of being a story of rock hubris, Van Halen’s no brown M&Ms clause was a clever indicator of potential danger.

One of the most famous stories of Van Halen is that, backstage at each concert, they required M&Ms to be provided but there were to be no brown M&Ms. This has become the stuff of legend, of 1980s rock & roll hubris, rock excess, a band at their most demanding exercising their clout – and as David Lee Roth has said why get in the way of a good rumor. Publicity is publicity.

The truth, according to the band, is that the “no brown M&Ms” clause served as an easily checked indicator as to whether or not the rest of the contract instructions had been followed. The contract Van Halen would give to a concert promoter not only included what the band required for themselves but also detailed requirements & instructions on how to assemble their stage show.

At the time Van Halen was one of the biggest bands in the world, traveling with nine eighteen-wheeler trucks of equipment (where most popular bands only had two or three). All of that equipment had technical requirements that, if not assembled correctly, could lead to serious physical harm. Seeing brown M&Ms was a warning that the concert promoter hadn’t paid attention to all of their instructions and that, if they missed the line about M&Ms, what else had they missed?

Sentinel species

For Van Halen it was never about the brown M&Ms – the M&Ms were a warning sign of potential danger. In a similar fashion, sentinel species are plants & animals used as indicators of danger. The most famous example is the canary in the coal mine. Canaries are more susceptible to the toxic gasses of a mine than humans are. A sick (or dead) canary in its cage was an indicator to get out of the mine. Also canaries were used in mines for a shockingly long time – December of 1986 is when Britain finally outlawed the practice.

Roses are frequently planted in vineyards at the ends of rows of grapes because roses & grapes are both susceptible to powdery mildew and roses can serve as an early warning sign. If vintners see powdery mildew on the roses they know to treat the grapes. An added bonus is the roses (when healthy) look nice.

Other sentinel species aren’t so much employed by humans but are observed in the wild. If the birds, oysters, bald eagles, worms, etc aren’t thriving in their ecosystem then we know there are environmental problems in the area.

Added info: It should be said that as fun/clever as the Van Halen “no brown M&Ms” story is, parts of it are perhaps not as clever as it would seem. Once promoters learned of the “no brown M&Ms” trap they would make sure they at least complied with that while perhaps still not reading the rest of the contract in detail. Further, the venue employees handling the food were probably not the same ones rigging the lights. So even if the catering had been handled correctly it didn’t necessarily mean everything else had.

Diamond Dave talks about no brown M&Ms.

Christmas Boar’s Head, to Goose, to Turkey

The changing Christmas entrée and how Charles Dickens helped standardize the turkey.

Boar’s Head

Before a goose at Christmas, and long before turkey, boar was the star of the English Christmas feast. At the table of the rich in Medieval England a cooked boar’s head was the main attraction. It was so special that it had its own Christmas carol (the Boar’s Head Carol) which would be sung as it was paraded into the hall.

While recipes varied, any way you cooked it the boar’s head was labor intensive. The head would be removed from the body, the skin would be carefully separated from the skull, cured meats and other ingredients would be stuff into the skin, it would be sewn back together, the whole head would be covered in muslin cloth, boiled, garnished, then dressed up with an apple in its mouth and perhaps some black ash to simulate fur.

boar's head Christmas dinners — The amount of labor involved in preparing the boar’s head meant only the wealthiest could afford it.

An added bonus at the table was roasted “gilded peacock”. Since the wow factor of a peacock is its showy feathers, the peacock’s head & skin was removed, the body was roasted, then the bird was put back together to be both edible and a showpiece. Also like the boar’s head it was only found on the tables of the wealthiest elite. That said it was mostly for show since apparently it didn’t taste particularly good.

As for the common people, depending on their finances they might have salted pork of some kind but a reliable alternative was pottage. Pottage was anything cooked in a pot. Special Christmas recipes might add certain spices as a seasonal treat. The most unfortunate of society could expect some of the feast leftovers, trenchers, and other scraps given as donations at the gates of clergy and the upper class. That said after waves of bubonic plague in the mid 14th century, which killed more people than animals, there was more meat available in general for all levels of society.

Goose

The goose became the Christmas entrée of choice in the 16th century when (supposedly) Queen Elizabeth I ordered others to eat roast goose for Christmas because that’s what she was eating when she heard the news of the English victory over the Spanish Armada in 1588.

As a main dish goose was a smart choice since it was something almost everyone could enjoy. Geese can be farmed (unlike wild boar), they don’t lay as many eggs as chickens so there is less reason to keep them around, they don’t provide milk like cows, they are larger than chickens so they can feed more people, and they take up less room than pigs. Geese also make exceptional guard animals (during the time you are raising them … before you cook them).

In the 19th century Queen Victoria ate the traditional boar’s head for Christmas dinner but for most people goose was the standard. A goose was relatively affordable but not cheap. Goose Clubs were layaway programs, frequently run by one’s local pub, where less affluent participants could make installment payments over time in order to have a goose for Christmas. The 1892 Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle is set at Christmas time and a goose club is a pivotal plot point.

Cooking a goose could be challenging depending on the kitchen. Too close to the fire a goose burns on the outside while being uncooked on the inside. The fat from the bird can drip into the fire causing bursts of flames. Also the size of the bird was difficult to accommodate if other things were being cooked. All of which led many Victorian Londoners to take their geese to their local bakeries who had seasonal side businesses of cooking people’s geese for them in their large bakery ovens (something Scrooge sees when he is traveling with the Ghost of Christmas Present in A Christmas Carol).

Turkey

Turkey comes from North America and some of the first turkeys to reach England were supposedly imported by William Strickland in 1526. He later had the turkey as part of his family crest. Initially turkeys were only for the wealthy since there were so few birds available. They were a status symbol and an exotic delicacy like how peacock had been, but unlike peacock a turkey tasted good.

By the Victorian era turkey was still a luxury but was no longer solely for the ultra rich. It was becoming more accessible to more people. Charles Dickens was a fan of turkey, so much so that the Cratchit family are gifted a prize winning turkey at the end of 1843’s A Christmas Carol.

The success of A Christmas Carol was so great that it not only reinvigorated the celebration of Christmas but it also popularized the idea of having a turkey for Christmas dinner instead of a goose. By the early 20th century advancements in farming both brought the price of turkeys down, and fattened the birds up, so as to make them Christmas feasts for everyone.

Belsnickel

The dirty, unstable, angry Christmas character who brings presents & punishment to children each year.

Unhinged Santa

Belsnickel is a Christmas tradition that comes from south western Germany. He visits each year, typically operating alone, usually in lieu of Saint Nicholas / Santa Claus. His name is a combination of “bels” (fur) and “nickel” (a diminutive version of Nicholas, from Saint Nicholas) – “Nicholas in Furs” essentially. He’s dirty, dressed in furs, sometimes wearing a mask, maybe has antlers, twigs, leaves, and arrives on Christmas Eve carrying a sack of treats along with a wooden switch/whip.

Belsnickel over the years — Belsnickel is like a dirtier, unpredictable, unhinged German version of Santa Claus.

He announces his arrival by rapping on a window or a door. Like Santa Claus he comes to reward the good children and punish the bad ones, but unlike Santa he is unpleasant and unpredictable. He is loud, angry, and prone to outbursts. In days gone by Belsnickel would throw treats to the ground for the good children and hit the bad children with a switch. Even the good children, if they moved too fast for the treats, might get hit with the switch.

Pennsylvania Dutch

Belsnickel came to America with German immigrants in the early 19th century and in particular to Pennsylvania. A bit of a misnomer, the Pennsylvania Dutch weren’t from the Netherlands but were from the same German speaking Palatinate region as Belsnickel. Among the rural Pennsylvania Dutch the tradition of Belsnickel continued.

In 19th century America Belsnickel led to “Belsnickling”, the custom of dressing in masks & costumes going door to door on Christmas Eve. Like mumming, or the Mari Lwyd tradition in Wales, Belsnickling participants would cause lighthearted mischief seeking coins & treats. By the end of the century masks for Belsnickling would even outsell Halloween masks in some areas.

Over the years Belsnickel changed with the times. Instead of arriving on Christmas Eve he can arrive anytime during the Christmas season. The influence of Santa Claus (and the decline of corporal punishment) has toned down Belsnickel’s behavior. He’s still unpredictable but instead of smacking children he is more likely to ask them if they have been bad or good, giving them presents or a scolding.

Post WWII, and the influence of pop culture, Belsnickel lost popularity to Santa Claus but has seen a bit of a resurgence in recent years. In 2012 the ninth season of The Office introduced Belsnickel to a wider audience with the Christmas episode of Dwight Christmas.

Added info: Belsnickel is one of many Christmas reward & punishment characters. Père Fouettard, Knecht Ruprecht, Zwarte Piet, and of course Krampus all are folk traditions that play a part in the Saint Nicholas / Santa Claus story.

The Office introduced Belsnickel to a wider audience.

The Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center discusses the history of Belsnickel.

Humbug

Humbug the fraud, the hoax, the mint candy.

A humbug is another name for a hoax, a trick, a fraud, something that presents as one thing but is really something else. It was a mid 18th century English slang word that today is perhaps most closely associated with the character of Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’s 1843 A Christmas Carol (the most famous Christmas ghost story of all time).

humbug is associated with Ebeneezer Scrooge

When Scrooge barks “Bah! Humbug!” he’s commenting on how Christmas is duplicitous, that he feels Christmas tells people they should be happy when they may have nothing to be happy about. To Scrooge, Christmas presents a face of cheer when beneath the surface the world is still as corrupt and as problematic as before. Scrooge the misanthrope, Scrooge the cantankerous grump. His “Bah! Humbug” establishes a baseline of Scrooge’s dislike of the season, his dim view of humanity, and how much work the three spirits will have to do to redeem him.

Humbug was a popular term for hoaxes and charlatans — While today we think of the word “humbug” mostly with *A Christmas Carol*, it used to be a popular word for charlatans, fraudsters, and hoaxes.

P.T. Barnum, the Prince of Humbug

One man who knew a thing or two about fraud was P.T. Barnum. Nicknamed the Prince of Humbugs, Barnum drew a fine line between what was and wasn’t an acceptable deception. He felt humbugs were acceptable tricks, that it was fine to trick the audience as long as they received something fun in return. One example of this was the Fiji Mermaid which he advertised as a beautiful woman rather than the monstrous animal hybrid he had on display (which was fake either way). If the ends justified the means it was all ok in Barnum’s opinion.

Barnum’s 1865 book The Humbugs of the World documents historic deceptions and the universality of hoaxes. For Barnum his style of humbug tricks were acceptable (not surprisingly) but hoaxes that tricked people out of their money with nothing in return were wrong. He spoke out publicly against psychics and other frauds who tricked and hurt people.

humbug candy — Humbug the striped candies have been popular since the 19th century, but unfortunately were the source of a poisoning scandal in 1858.

Mint Candy

Something that’s not a trick, but is a treat, are humbug candies. Humbugs are striped candies, typically mint flavored, most commonly found in English speaking countries (except the US). While they are probably English in origin, and have existed since at least the 1820s, it’s unknown exactly who invented them or why they are called humbugs.

In the mid 19th century humbugs gained an unwanted spotlight. On October 30, 1858 a batch of humbugs in Bradford, England were accidentally made with arsenic trioxide instead of daft (a filler agent made with powdered limestone & plaster of Paris, used as a sugar replacement to cut cost). A junior druggist scooped the wrong powder and gave it to the assistant candy maker who didn’t notice. This mistake killed 20 people (13 of whom were children) and poisoned an additional 200 people. One positive is this led to the Pharmacy Act of 1868 which, among other things, required poisonous substances to be specially marked to avoid confusion.

A look back at how humbugs were made in 1967.

Black Friday

The shopping day after Thanksgiving of dubious value.

Black Friday is the big shopping day after Thanksgiving and is considered the start of the Christmas shopping season. It’s the day retailers offer discounts on all sorts of items, creating a surge of shoppers out for the best deals. These days, while some of the biggest sales are limited to Black Friday, most retailers start offering “Black Friday” sales ahead of time in the days leading up to the day (and then continuing the sales the days following it, extending Black Friday in both directions).

The name Black Friday comes from late 1950s / early 1960s Philadelphia. People would descend on the city the day after Thanksgiving causing vehicle traffic & herds of people shuffling around the city – suburban shoppers coming to town for the day, relatives visiting for Thanksgiving, fans in town for Saturday’s Army–Navy Game with a day to kill, shoplifters, etc. To describe this chaotic mess the Philadelphia police called the day Black Friday.

Over the years, to try and separate the day from a nickname that implied chaos and headaches, attempts were made to rebrand Black Friday. In the 1960s Philadelphia retailers tried to have this day called “Big Friday” but it didn’t catch on. Eventually they accepted the name but with the spin that the “black” referred to their profits. Even this new interpretation came with the myth that retailers operated at a loss all year and relied on Black Friday and holiday shopping to take them out of the red and into the black financially. While this red to black was never true Black Friday is one of the biggest shopping days of the year and can make up 20-40% of a store’s annual sales.

Shop till you drop

Philadelphia and certain other cities have had Black Friday for decades but it took until the 1990s for it to become a nationwide event. Perhaps not surprisingly it has also become an international shopping event with at least 129 countries using Black Friday to generate sales. International Black Fridays are still held around the same time as the American version despite the absence of a Thanksgiving to pin it to.

The same companies who pushed to make Black Friday a day you’re supposed to buy things, also invented Cyber Monday as a day you’re supposed to buy things. Begun in 2005 Cyber Monday is the Monday after Black Friday when people would supposedly go to work and shop online. This wasn’t true at the time but by pushing this idea it actually became true. Cyber Monday is now the biggest online shopping day of the year in America.

Small Business Saturday is the day after Black Friday and was invented by American Express in 2010. Its goal is to encourage people to shop locally in small businesses … and of course spend more money.

Amazon launched Prime Day in 2015 as a sort of Christmas in July Black Friday sale. That said Amazon has a history of increasing their prices before they release their “deals” for Prime Day. Camelcamelcamel is a price history site that helps shoppers decide whether or not Amazon “deals” are worth it.

A perhaps silver lining to these invented days of commerce is GivingTuesday. This is the Tuesday after Thanksgiving when people are encouraged to donate to charities.

Is it worth it?

All of that said, Black Friday is not what it once was. The days of people lining up in the dark before stores opened, the grotesque violence, for doorbuster deals on big ticket items, are largely over. As mentioned many retailers begin offering Black Friday deals in advance of Black Friday. Some other holidays actually offer better discounts than Black Friday – President’s Day, for example, typically offers bigger discounts on appliances and mattresses. Some companies run the scam of raising prices in the days leading up to Black Friday to then offer a “discount” back down to the previous price. Bait-and-switch deals are also used to lure in customers with the possibility of big savings on scarce items, hoping they’ll shop for other things once there.

There isn’t one answer as to whether shopping on Black Friday is worth it. It depends on the sale and whether or not you really need something. Look into the price history of an item to see if it is really being discounted or not. Shop around for the best deals. Only buy what you need – buying more stuff is not the path to happiness.

Added info: while Black Friday may be a day for big sales, the practice of beginning the Christmas shopping season the day after Thanksgiving existed decades before Black Friday. Thanksgiving parades, most notably the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City, end with Santa Claus as the finale. Santa’s appearance ushers in, quite literally, the end of Thanksgiving and the beginning of the Christmas season. Further, in 1939 President Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving from the last Thursday in November to the fourth Thursday in November, specifically to give shoppers (and retailers) an extra week of Christmas shopping (an extra week being dependent on the number of Thursdays in a given year’s November).

If you are feeling nostalgic for the simpler holiday shopping of times gone by you can browse old Sears Wishbooks.

And finally, the Philadelphia area not only gave us the name for Black Friday but it also gave us another day, Mischief Night, the night before Halloween when teens cause havoc.

Tofurkey

The vegan turkey option that’s a part of the long history of meat substitutes.

Tofurkey is a plant-based meat replacement loaf. It’s typically soy and/or wheat based with a stuffing core seasoned with herbs & spices. Its name is a portmanteau of “tofu” and “turkey” and was designed as a turkey substitute for Thanksgiving. When spelled “Tofurky” with no “E” it’s the brand name version created by Seth Tibbot.

Turtle Island Foods is a vegetarian food company started by Tibbot in 1980 in Forest Grove, Oregon. By 1995 Tibbot (who had been living in a 3 story treehouse of his own making) teamed up with vegetarian caterers Hans & Rhonda Wrobel to create a vegan alternative to the Thanksgiving turkey, and the tofurky was born. That first Thanksgiving they produced 500 tofurkys but by 2023 an estimated 5 million had been sold.

meat replacement ideas over the years — Meat replacement options have been around for thousands of years.

Substitute

The tofurkey is a part of the long history of meat replacement foods. Tofu (made from soy beans) has been eaten in China for at least 2,000 years. As Buddhism spread around Asia, preaching non-violence, it gradually converted more and more people to meat substitutes as killing animals and eating meat was strongly discouraged (that said it is unlikely the Buddha was a strict vegetarian). Wheat gluten based food (seitan, “wheat meat”, etc) was also invented in China, around the 6th century CE.

Seventh-day Adventist (a religion started in 1863 from the failed Second Coming predictions of William Miller) encourages a healthy vegetarian diet. Headquartered in Battle Creek, Michigan they opened their Sanitarium in 1903 which was a “premier wellness destination” and became famous under the direction of Dr. John Harvey Kellogg. A strong proponent of vegetarianism, Kellogg (who created the Kellogg Company with his brother William Kellogg in 1906) promoted around 100 food items aimed at living a healthy meat-free lifestyle. Kellogg’s Corn Flakes still exist today but one of his other big hits was Protose, a very successful fake meat that (at least texturally) resembled veal or chicken.

While vegetarianism has waxed & waned over the years the world is currently in a boom of plant-based meat replacement options. Beyond Burgers, Gardenburgers, Impossible Foods, MorningStar Farms, No Evil Foods, Quorn, and scores of others have all given people meat alternatives, and the tofurkey is a seasonal part of it all.

Seth Tibbot talks about inventing the tofurky.

Pilgrims, Puritans, and Persecution

The Pilgrims and the Puritans shaped early America, not always for the better.

After Henry VIII renounced the Catholic Church in 1534 it set England on a path towards total separation from Rome. The religious direction of the country swung back and forth between Catholicism and Protestantism until Elizabeth I finalized the direction of the country making England a protestant country through the Church of England.

Religious dissent was not tolerated in Elizabeth’s England. During her reign the government ratcheted up the pressure for religious compliance. People were fined if they did not attend Church of England masses, Catholics practicing in secret risked possible execution if caught, etc. However, once the precedent of rejecting established beliefs had been set, others followed suit.

Pilgrims

During this unstable religious period some people began to create new faith ideas. In Nottinghamshire people started separatist congregations, turning away from the Church of England. To escape English persecution these separatists moved to the Netherlands in the early 17th century. While Holland was more religiously tolerant, it was foreign and had limited economic opportunities since the English separatists were classified as unskilled laborers. They wanted a place to call their own with a new start. In 1620 they left the Netherlands for Southampton where they boarded the Mayflower and the Speedwell sailing to North America. These congregational separatists would become known as the Pilgrims.

Theologically the Pilgrims completely separated themselves from the Church of England. They were largely Calvinists. They believed in a direct personal relationship with God, they rejected a hierarchical church leadership, they rejected most of the sacraments, and they believed in the predestination of souls (that God had already decided who goes to Heaven or Hell).

After 66 days at sea the Pilgrims arrived in Provincetown Harbor, at the tip of Cape Cod. A month later they moved across the harbor to Plymouth founding the Plymouth Colony. Incidentally it wasn’t until 121 years later in 1741 that a boulder was identified as “Plymouth Rock”, the alleged landing spot of the Pilgrims. In 1621 the Pilgrims worked with the Wampanoag to celebrate the first Thanksgiving, the thing they are perhaps most famous for (and an idea they probably borrowed from the Dutch).

Puritans

So who were the Puritans? In a nutshell they were better financed and a lot less tolerant than the Pilgrims. The Puritans arrived in Massachusetts in 1630, 10 years after the Pilgrims, on 17 ships, with a lot more money and a lot more people. By 1640 the Puritans were around 20,000 in number while the Pilgrims of Plymouth were about 2,600.

Unlike the Pilgrims, the Puritans did not see themselves as separatists. In fact, they felt the Church of England didn’t go far enough to separate itself from Catholicism and worked to “purify” the faith (hence the name “Puritans”).

Persecution

For a story of people seeking religious freedom, it’s perhaps surprising how much intolerance was baked into America from the beginning. In a case of the persecuted becoming the persecutor, many of the protestant settlers were intolerant of others just as England had been towards them. In establishing their colonies the settlers used their religious beliefs as a justification to discriminate against the Native Americans as well as other types of Christians.

The Pilgrims tended to be more tolerant than the Puritans, but even the Pilgrims would expel religious dissenters and killed Native Americans. In 1637 the Puritans massacred between 400-700 Pequot people along the Mystic River in Connecticut. Quakers were hung in Boston in 1659 and 1661 for returning to the city after having been cast out for their differing religious beliefs by the Puritans. By the end of the 17th century Puritan intolerance & suspicions led to the Salem witch trials, executing 19 people. Even after the American Revolution, depending on what state you were in, Catholics were banned from holding public office, Jews did not have full civil rights, etc. Puritanical protestants used their beliefs to justify their bigotry.

That said not every American colonist was intolerant. Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and John Adams all advocated for religious freedom and established the separation of church and state. Adopted in 1791, the First Amendment of the US Constitution guarantees the freedom to exercise religion, but even today the struggle for tolerance and the secularization of government continues. The Pilgrims and the Puritans continue to be mythologized, creating the idea of an America that never existed.

A short crash-course of the Pilgrims coming to North America.

QI discusses the Puritans long history of intolerance.

Black Cats

Iconic symbols of witches & Halloween, black cats are lovable felines shrouded in superstition.

Genetics

Black cats are cats with all black fur (probably obvious). That said they aren’t a specific breed of cat and span at least 22 breeds. The Bombay is the only breed that is exclusively black as they were specifically bred in the 1950s to look like tiny panthers.

The gene for black fur is on the x chromosome and so most black cats are male (since they only have one x chromosome). Female cats need two black fur x chromosomes to be black, which makes female black cats very rare. The genetics that give black cats the darker melanin for their fur also gives most black cats yellow eyes.

Some black cats can “rust”, where their black fur turns a bit brown. Sometimes this is due to dietary problems but seems to be most commonly caused by prolonged exposure to sunlight. Given time they go back to being black.

historic black cats — Cats, and specifically black cats, have a long association with magic and witchcraft.

Superstitions

Besides their beautiful appearance, black cats are famous for all sorts of superstitious beliefs (both good and bad). The association of cats with magic goes back to the ancient Egyptians (in particular the goddess Bastet who had the body of a woman and the head of a black cat). The sinister reputation of black cats goes back at least as far as 13th century Germany where they were associated with evil magic. In 1233 Pope Gregory IX’s Vox in Rama condemned witchcraft, the occult, and Luciferianism which was said to be rampant in Germany.

As the church sought out heretics they formed connections (real or imagined) between black cats and demonic witchcraft. It was said the devil would appear as a black cat or a hybrid of part cat part man. By 1486 Pope Innocent VII said that “the cat was the devil’s favorite animal and idol of all witches.”

Over the centuries black cats continued to be associated with witches. Black cats played a part in the Salem Witch Trials where again they were signs that witchcraft was taking place (sometimes a cat was even thought to be a witch in disguise). Today a black cat crossing your path is generally considered bad luck but in Germany the direction the cat is crossing can bring either good or bad luck (with right to left being bad luck).

That said it isn’t all bad for black cats. British & Irish sailors believed that black cats as ship’s cats would bring good luck and ensure a safe return to harbor. In Scotland a black cat on your doorstep means money is coming your way. Black cats in Japan are believed to bring good fortune and possibly help single women find love. Pop culture witches are frequently accompanied by black cats. In the 1989 Studio Ghibli movie Kiki’s Delivery Service the little witch Kiki is accompanied by a helpful black cat named Jiji. Sabrina the Teenage Witch has a cat named Salem Saberhagen who had been a warlock but was subsequently transformed into a talking black cat.

pop culture black cats — Over the years the superstition around black cats has softened and they’ve become a fun part of Halloween.

Adoption & Halloween

Centuries of superstitions have made black cats both an iconic witchy part of Halloween as well as a bit of a pariah. Despite being innocent lovable feline friends, not enough black cats are adopted and as a result they are the most euthanized cat color in shelters. It should be noted though that black cats (fully black as well as mostly black) are also the most prevalent color of cat. So while black cats are the most euthanatized by total number there are also more black cats overall and the euthanasia rate seems to be similar to other cat colors (with white cats being the least euthanized).

There is an urban legend that black cats are used in dark rituals around Halloween but there has never been any evidence of this. Still, some shelters restrict black cat adoptions as Halloween approaches. For the shelters who do not restrict black cat adoptions there does not seem to be any increased adoption rate for black cats around Halloween. If you are looking to adopt a black cat some shelters have Black Friday adoption events where the adoption fees are waived for black cats.

Added info: Black cats found another way into classic Americana kitsch, the Kit-Cat Klock. Created in Portland, Oregon in 1932 the Kit-Cat Klock is a black & white cat clock whose eyes and tale move side-to-side in time. The clock is still produced and the design is largely unchanged from the original. The classic black & white model is around $60. Their manufacturer California Clock estimates that they have sold one clock every three minutes for the last 50 years.

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