Brown Sugar- and Orange-Brined Smoked Turkey

Here’s a bird near and dear to us, for the Aztecs and other native Americans domesticated turkeys long before the arrival of Columbus. Benjamin Franklin regarded turkey so highly, he wanted to name it—not the bald eagle—our national bird. So how did a fowl with such deep American roots come to be called turkey? In the sixteenth century, many luxury consumer products came from or through Turkey. Thus labeling this New World fowl a “Turkie bird” helped lend it cachet and earn it commercial ac