Who started the tradition of making a wish upon finding a wishbone of a chicken in your food?
Although often thought of as an American tradition, breaking the wishbone from a turkey was actually brought to the new world by the Pilgrims from England. The importance of the wishbone can be traced back to the Romans who ate fowl such as guinea fowl and chicken. Hens and cocks were thought to be oracles or fortune tellers. The Romans adopted this belief from the Etruscans who settled one of the earliest civilizations on the Italian peninsula around 800-900 BC. The Romans would have been responsible for bringing the superstition with them to the western world. When the Etruscan’s killed a bird it’s collarbone would be laid out to dry in the sun. They would then pick up the bone and stroke it and make a wish. This is where the name ‘wishbone’ came from and it seems that wishing on bird’s clavicles was a common practice for a few centuries. The wishbone or furcula is also called the ‘Merrythought’ a term that dates back to at least 1686 when the custom of two people taking hold of eith
