I’m betting you’re probably down to the dark meat and giblets by now.
I’m betting you’re probably down to the dark meat and giblets by now. Each year around Thanksgiving, Americans eat about 12 billion pounds of turkey: or 10 pounds per person, per sandwich, per hour. This amazing gobbler consumption is carried out despite the fact that no known American has ever admitted to liking turkey.
It’s dry.
Turkey is just dry. It’s a big, ugly-looking, lopsided bird with a face like a baboon. Cook it and you get a big, ugly-looking, brown bird that tastes like sand, Which is why Americans employ gravy and cranberry sauce in a futile attempt to add taste to turkey.
In the South, where turkey is plentiful, gravy is considered a beverage.
I know, I know, your mother makes a great turkey. It’s juicy, it’s supple, and it sings and does soft-shoe routines to the Gettysburg Address. I’ve heard it all before. I’ve had turkey cooked in a large pan. I’ve had turkey cooked in a small pan. I’ve had turkey basted with milk, beer, with corn chowder. I’ve had fried turkey, grilled turkey, blackened turkey, smoked turkey, turkey bacon, and turkey burgers.
And there’s only one thing a turkey is good on a turkey sandwich. What’s in a good turkey sandwich? Well, there’s the bread, of course, mayonnaise, tomato, lettuce, mustard, cranberry sauce, stuffing, salt, pepper, a dollop of gravy, and a toothpick. Nothing more.
The Murphy Thanksgiving turkey has a long tradition of being inedible. First, we start with the oldest, lamest, skinny disease-ridden bird on the farm. Then we kill him if he hasn’t already died of malnutrition. Grandmama brings home the fowl and asks her housekeeper of 25 years, Mildred, to cook him.
Mildred, whose culinary skills are no better than my grandmother’s, puts the bird in the oven for about seven hours, effectively simmering any juice out of the fowl. When the bird in fact sizzles out its last wheeze of moisture–it’s done! Happy Thanksgiving!
We, the children, in order to live a more peaceful existence, say things like “Oh! Yum! This is the best turkey yet! Give me more! et cetera, et cetera.”
Under no circumstance do we eat any turkey, or god forbid, “giblet” gravy. “Giblet” incidentally, is French for “disgusting turkey innards that should be fed to the dogs.”
But somehow I always look forward to Thanksgiving dinner–even the turkey. Because we can’t eat until supper on Thanksgiving day, the enjoyment of turkey is all in my grandmother’s secret key ingredient–starvation.
And if I don’t eat anything until next Thanksgiving, I may even try the giblet gravy.
—Morgan Murphy