French culinary expression: BE THE TURKEY OF THE STUFFING
You suppose the origin of the expression a culinary allusion: the one who is the victim, the duped, does he not get caught, ultimately, like a turkey in a farce?
Tempting explanation for this "Indon" (the turkey being originally the "chicken of India"), but which is probably not the right one.
In Indeed, if the meaning of "to be the designated victim, to be duped" is undoubtedly that of the expression from the end of the 18th century (and will even arise in its wake the verb "dindonner" to mean to dupe, deceive), the prank in question seems rather to designate a joke, a bad trick played on someone, the turkey playing the role that we would more readily attribute to the pigeon today!
And one would even suggest seeing in it a direct allusion to La Fontaine's fable, entitled The Fox and the Chickens of India, where the cunning fox, in order to knock down stunned turkeys from a tree, , mimes them a real joke:
(The fox) had recourse to his bag of villainous tricks, pretended to want to climb, stilted himself on his paws, then counterfeited the dead, then the resuscitated.
