Friday, November 13, 2009

F2: Talking Turkey

Welcome again to Friday's Feast. Today I'll be talking about talking to your turkey. If you don't know what Friday's Feast is all about, please read the Friday's Feast page for a more detailed explanation. If you want to join in on the feast— be sure to leave a comment and include the URL to your post so I and others can know of your contribution. Also, if you want to see a particular topic— feel free to suggest it as well (I'm always looking for new inspirations).

Participants in this weeks Feast are as follows:


Whenever we prepare our turkey for thanksgiving my wife and I typically go through an interesting ritual. In order to make the experience of preparing the bird more palpable, we tend to humanize (or is that turkeyize) the bird. If you are borderline vegetarian— this may put you over the edge, so be forwarned.

Give the bird a bath
We take the bird out of the refrigerator and remove the plastic wrap. "Hi Mr. Turkey" we say to the bird… "are you ready for your bath?" After removing the giblets, we place the bird in a colander and proceed to wash the outsides as well as the insides of the bird.
Remove the pin feathers
"Oh Mr. Turkey— you seem to have some whiskers, let us shave them for you." This is where my wife shines. She can spot a pin feather a mile away and proceeds to pluck them with a pair of tweezers.
Salt the inside cavity
I don't think we say anything when we salt the insides, but if we did we could say: "Let's get your insides cleaned up nicely so you're ready for some stuffing."
Truss the bird
After we stuff the chicken, we say: "There Mr. Turkey, you're almost ready to go. Let's get you ready for your sauna."
Butter the bird
"Let's give you a nice butter massage to smooth out those muscles." We then proceed to butter the outside of the turkey and place it in the roasting pan.
Serving the bird
No, this is not giving the finger, but rather what we say when we take the turkey out of the oven: "Welcome Mr. Turkey. Did you have a nice sauna? Thank you for being such a great Turkey and making our Thanksgiving great."

You have to realize that Mr. Turkey sacrificed his life for us so that we can enjoy eating turkey for Thanksgiving. They are self serving creatures that do not mind the service that they provide. Giving them that extra dignity makes their sacrifice more noble


Given that this month is Thanksgiving for our family, I have decided to have Thanksgiving be the theme for the entire month of November.

  • Do you "Talk Turkey"— or talk to your turkey?
  • Who does Thanksgiving in your family— are you the host, or the guest?
  • What craziness ensues when the family comes to visit?
  • Are you traditional with your dishes, or are you experimental?
  • Do you have any family recipes handed down for generations at your table?
  • What do you do with all those leftovers?

So grab a turkey leg, pull up a chair and link up. Even if you are Canadian and have celebrated earlier this year— or have a post from last year's festivities your links are always welcome.


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This will be our first Thanksgiving in four years because we've been living overseas. But the best thing about Thanksgiving with my husbands family is they don't let me do anything. I am not allowed to bring anything, not even wine and they never let me help clean up. It's a like a free pass day!

My husbands family is Russian so they have a lot of traditional Russian foods I don't care for. I much prefer the usual green bean casserole and stuffing so I tend to make it the day after for us.

Thanks for the link ;)

Deb said...

ah the noblest of birds :)

no turducken for us this year... since we will be traveling ON thanksgiving, it will most likely be starbucks and micky d's.

Anonymous said...

I like the idea of personalizing the main dish. I may start to do that nightly. "Looking great, Ms. Chicken. Have you lost weight?" "Mr. Manicotti, you look stuffed!" "Senor Taco, via con Dios."

Joanie said...

I think I've only ever cooked one turkey by myself. When I was married and we were hosting Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner, my ex always did the cooking (he's in the biz).
I wrote a Thanksgiving story! Here's my link!

http://joanies-random-rambling.blogspot.com/2009/11/glad-i-wasnt-at-this-thanksgiving-feast.html

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