Turkey Day draws near in Animal Crossing! Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful for all life’s bounties, including family, friends, and most importantly, food. Said holiday also appears in the Animal Crossing series, albeit as Turkey Day. Similar to its real-world counterpart, this festive celebration revolves around cooking. The skittish head chef Franklin will need your help in crafting delicious dishes. Follow this guide for what you need to sink your teeth into Turkey Day.
History of Turkey Day in Animal Crossing
Unlike other major events, such as Halloween, Turkey Day has had a rather erratic history in the Animal Crossing series. The holiday first appeared in the international release of Animal Crossing for the GameCube. The event was originally called the Harvest Festival; rather intriguingly, the Harvest Festival was not present in Doubutsu no Mori or Doubutsu no Mori+.
This means the celebration was initially exclusive to Western audiences, until the release of Doubutsu no Mori e+ in 2003. Since its debut, the Harvest Festival/Turkey Day has been included in every mainline title, sans Wild World for the DS. The holiday was also absent from New Horizons until the 1.6.0 Winter Update, which also reintroduced Toy Day to the game.
While Thanksgiving has maintained a steady presence in the series, the actual mechanics of the event between games have wildly varied. In its introduction, Tortimer, the tortoise mayor, invites Franklin the turkey to a feast. Franklin is unaware he was invited to dinner to be the main course.
The goal was to snatch up silverware from the plaza’s banquet tables and then scavenge for the turkey throughout town as he cloaked himself behind trees and buildings. Giving the downtrodden Franklin knives and forks you acquired would delay his demise. In return, he would bestow the player exclusive furniture from the Harvest series.
Turkey Day in New Horizons
The Harvest Festival would thematically take a turn beginning in New Leaf for the 3DS. Franklin would no longer be the subject of a wild goose chase and instead takes on the role of head chef for a Thanksgiving banquet. While commandeering his cooking table, the chief gobbler enlists the player to gather various ingredients.
Doing so aids Franklin in concocting some special meals for the event. These ingredients include fish, fruit, and special food products like butter. The player must speak with and trade items with their villagers to garner some of these event-exclusive materials. Helping the warbling bird complete his dishes would allow you to acquire Harvest-series furniture.
In New Horizons, the Harvest Festival is now known as Turkey Day as turkey is traditionally eaten during Thanksgiving. Despite its name change, the mechanics of the holiday are largely similar to how they functioned in New Leaf. Chef Franklin will visit your island and establish a couple of banquet tables in your Resident Services plaza.
Like before, you are tasked with assembling ingredients to help him complete 4 dishes to serve to the island’s residents. It should be noted that the types of ingredients you will need differ depending on the hemisphere in which your island is set. Ensuring you have a steady supply of pumpkins in all available color variants will prove helpful when Turkey Day begins.
Gathering Ingredients
Turkey Day always occurs on the fourth Thursday of November to coincide with Thanksgiving. Once the day arrives, the event officially begins at 9 AM and runs until midnight. The villagers on your island will don hats, carry plates and drinks, and sing as they happily traipse about the plaza.
You will also find the ever-warbling Franklin working hard at his cooking table. When you speak with him, he will request local ingredients when cooking. Every dish he makes requires specific materials; each one also has a respective secret ingredient. Providing these secret ingredients to him confers additional rewards.
Gathering all of the necessary materials requires some effort. Some ingredients necessitate fishing while others can only be captured through diving. As in previous games, you can speak with some of your homebound villagers to obtain the necessary materials. They can also provide hints on which specific items you need to acquire.
From the 2.0 Update onwards, some of the dishes have gained new base ingredient options, offering more flexibility in completing them. Should you wish to do the event free from spoilers, you can skip the following section. Below is a complete list of the 4 dishes that Franklin will cook up; the base materials and secret ingredients are specified alongside any differences between the hemispheres:
Clam Chowder
Clam chowder will be a relatively simple meal to create. In both the northern and southern hemispheres, its base only requires 3 manila clams to complete. You can use your shovel to dig up clams from the dark spots spurting water along your beach. The secret ingredient for the chowder is a scallop, which is acquired from diving. Scallops can be caught from medium-sized shadows, but ensure you don’t donate them to Pascal if the red otter greets you from underwater.
Pumpkin Pie
The pumpkin pie will likely be the easiest of the 4 dishes to make if you prepped for the event. Chef Franklin requests you to provide 1 orange pumpkin for the base. He then asks for either a green, white, or yellow pumpkin; the color he chooses will be random. The secret ingredient for the pie is 1 pumpkin each of the other colors that were not selected. Thus you will need at least 1 pumpkin of all 4 color variants to nab a perfect slice of pie.
Gratin
The ingredients needed to make the gratin vary significantly between northern and southern hemisphere islands. In the northern hemisphere, you will first need one type of mushroom (flat, round, elegant, or skinny); alternatively, you can use an oyster. You also must provide either a mussel, carrot, or potato. In the southern hemisphere, the base recipe first requires a squid and then your choice between a sea urchin, carrot, or potato. The secret ingredient for both hemispheres is a Dungeness crab, which can be procured from medium-sized shadows via diving.
Fish meunière
Also known as the Olive-flounder meunière, this dish has slight differences between the hemispheres. Either way, you will first need to catch a sea bass, which gives the annoyingly common ocean fish some usage. Next, you can hand Franklin either an olive flounder, a dab, a red snapper, or flour. In the southern hemisphere, the only difference is that the dab is not an ingredient option, likely due to being out of season. The secret ingredient is a barred knifejaw, a zebra-striped fish that can be obtained from medium-sized shadows while fishing on your beach.
Mouthwatering Rewards
Completing each of Franklin’s 4 dishes will net you exclusive Turkey Day items that cannot be crafted. These include a special rug, wallpaper, flooring, and a cornucopia. Franklin will also reward you with a piece of craftable furniture if you provide him with the correct secret ingredients for each meal. If all 4 dishes are complete with each of their secret ingredients, your prize is a recipe pack containing 8 DIYs for the Turkey Day series, allowing you to craft them at any time. The following is an exhaustive list of the different Turkey Day DIY items you can obtain and their requirements:
1. Turkey Day casserole: Requires 5 iron nuggets and 1 clay
2. Turkey Day chair: Requires 5 wood, 2 softwood, and 2 hardwood
3. Turkey Day decorations: Requires 2 softwood, 2 clay, and 5 clumps of weed
4. Turkey Day garden stand: Requires 8 stones and 3 clay
5. Turkey Day hearth: Requires 1 campfire, 30 stones, and 10 clay
6. Turkey Day table: Requires 10 hardwood and 5 softwood
7. Turkey Day table setting: Requires 4 clay and 2 iron nuggets
8. Turkey Day wheat décor: Requires 10 clumps of weed
While the Thanksgiving event was first added in New Horizons in 2020, the 2.0 Free Update added cooking as a player mechanic on November 4, 2021. With the introduction of this new type of crafting into the game, the Turkey Day event was also modified so that players can now learn the recipes of the dishes they help Franklin cook up. The following is a list of these new food items and their cooking requirements:
1. Clam chowder: Requires 1 flour and 3 manila clams
2. Olive-flounder meunière: Requires 1 olive flounder and 2 flour
3. Pumpkin pie: Requires 3 flour, 3 sugar, and 2 orange pumpkins
4. Gratin: Requires 3 flour and 2 potatoes
Happy Thanksgiving!
If you cannot complete all 4 dishes with their secret ingredients by the event’s end, don’t panic. The Turkey Day DIY recipe pack will be sold in Nook’s Cranny the day after the holiday until November 30. While this pack normally costs 19,800 bells, it will be sold at a discount of 13,860.
This is due to the 2.0 Update’s addition of Nook Friday—a parallel to our Black Friday—where all items sold in the store are 30% off until the month’s end. The food recipes can also be purchased in a DIY pack for 6,860 bells. These are all things to be thankful for, so show some love and get ready to gobble up some good eats.
