Talkin' Turkey with Norman Rockwell and Chef Tony Mantuano

Deborah Solomon‘s new book, American Mirror (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux), reveals that Norman Rockwell wrestled with severe depression and was consumed by a sense of inadequacy, but today let’s focus on the turkey—specifically, the plump bird in Rockwell’s Freedom from Want. An image of the oil painting, part of a series illustrating President Franklin Roosevelt’s four freedoms, appeared in the Saturday Evening Post in 1943. The work is on view through January 27 at the Art Institute of Chicago as part of “Art and Appetite,” an exhibition that explores the tasty tradition of food and drink in American art.