Why Is My Turkey Wearing Frilly Paper Hats On Its Legs?

Donning a chef’s hat while you cook Thanksgiving dinner is one thing, but sticking a tiny one on the end of each crispy turkey leg seems like it might be taking the holiday a bit too far.

Over the years, these traditional paper coverings have been called many creative names, including turkey frills, turkey booties, and even turkey panties. And while they’ve fallen out of fashion in recent decades, they originally served a very specific purpose. According to 19th-century writer John Cordy Jeaffreson, paper trimmings gained popularity in the 17th century as a way for women to keep their hands clean while they carved meat.

“To preserve the cleanness of her fingers, the same covering was put on those parts of joints which the carver usually touched with the left hand, whilst the right made play with the shining blade,” he explained in A Book About the Table in 1875. “The paper-frill which may still be seen round the bony point and small end of a leg of mutton, is a memorial of the fashion in which joints were dressed for the dainty hands of lady-carvers, in time prior to the introduction of the carving-fork.”

When etiquette books started encouraging “lady-carvers” to use carving forks, the paper didn’t become obsolete—it just got frillier. During the 19th and 20th centuries, chop frills were a cute and classy way to conceal the unsightly leg bones of roast turkey, lamb, chicken, or any other bird. “Dress up any leggy food with them for parties or the children’s birthdays,” Iowa’s Kossuth County Advance wrote in 1951. “They will be thrilled.”

If you’d like to dress up a leggy food or two this Thanksgiving, here are some instructions for making your own chop frills, courtesy of HuffPost.

Have you got a Big Question you'd like us to answer? If so, let us know by emailing us at bigquestions@mentalfloss.com.

A version of this story originally ran in 2020; it has been updated for 2023.