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We love Thanksgiving—supposedly—because it lacks the stress of Christmas. No gifts, no guilt, just getting together with family and friends for an extended meal. Or maybe an extended day of many meals, if you’re one of those Tday multiple-drop-by people.
For certain carefree guests, this worry-free, Rockwellesque nirvana may actually exist. But if you’re the person who’s in charge of preparing the meal—or overseeing its preparation—get ready for a bewildering array of fads, fancies, pronouncements, rules, and regulations. Words of wisdom about making a turkey dinner have acrrued over the years to an alarming degree, with the old never being replaced with the new—just more and more layers of how-tos added over the decades. Someone you know swears by any one of thousands of obscure turkey-cooking conventions, whether it’s basting with orange juice or strapping an icepack to the breast meat.
This year, I could no longer ignore the fact that Western New York has a bunch of local farms where you can buy fresh, heritage turkeys with interesting names like Bourbon Red, Standard Bronze, Black Spanish, and Royal Palm. I finally broke down. I will be serving the meat that Marian Burros says has “turkey flavor that is merely hinted at in the supermarket turkeys.” After ordering up the two birds (I’m galantining one of them), I went online to see if there would be special cooking instructions for them.I did not find this information. What I did find was a bizarre and maddening mix of contradictory advice. Now I understand why Calvin Trillin thinks our national Thanskgiving dish should be changed to spaghetti Carbonara.
When is the turkey done? The official Butterball site is rigid on this. The thigh should be 185˚; the breast 170˚. The USDA recommends 165˚ throughout the animal. But in 2008, Marian Burros wrote that taking the turkey out when the leg/breast intersection reaches 150˚ and letting it sit for half an hour (while the temp inches up) might be the secret to a moist bird. Many professional chefs insist that taking the bird apart and roasting breast and dark meat separately is the only way to make sure the white meat doesn't taste like cottonballs.
To brine or not to brine? If you have a fresh turkey that hasn’t been injected with weirdness, you can moisten and flavor it with brining. I love the step by step Pioneer Woman instructions. Such copiously illustrated precision is only possible on a blog. Brining is huge now, with apple cider brine the flavor of the moment. But wait! Food scientist Harold McGee remains a non-briner; he says it makes the meat and drippings too salty; he recommends bathing all the cooked meat in a pan sauce before serving, instead.
Finally, one of the most controversial issues of all. Where does the stuffing go? A recent New York Times column said it most poignantly: Will I Kill My Family if I Cook the Stuffing Inside the Turkey? (The answer, you'll be relieved to hear, is no. More or less.)
By the time you’ve finished reading all the advice on this topic, killing somebody—or something—is going to sound like a good idea. When those thoughts arrive, step away from the turkey, and pour yourself a big cocktail. Any recipe will do.
