Those of you old enough to remember Erma Bombeck's newspaper column might recall the one she did on cooking for Thanksgiving. According to Erma, there are only two kinds of turkeys that show up in the Thanksgiving kitchen. There is the 24 pound bird frozen hard as a rock that you put in the oven that cooks in 30 minutes; and then there is the never frozen 10 pound turkey that sits in the hot oven and is still raw 12 hours later. Over the years, I've run across more than my fair share of Erma Bombeck turkeys, and I got another one this year.
Most of the turkeys you buy at a supermarket come frozen solid at somewhere between 59 and 89 cents a pound. If you opt for a fresh-killed, chilled (NOT frozen) turkey, the price per pound might go up to $2.00 or so. Of course, these are the turkeys normal humans find in a normal supermarket.
If, however, you are dealing with a health fanatic like Her Imperial Majesty and a child whose digestive system is sensitive to antibiotics and Her Imperial Majesty is not willing to take a chance on just any turkey, you have two other options open to you in terms of commercial birds. One is the natural, free-range turkey guaranteed to have been fed no antibiotics in its feed or water. Those are priced at $3.00 a pound. Then there is the 100% Organic turkey, fed only on 100% organic feed, never any antibiotics, never any growth hormones, usually an heirloom breed. These cost $4.00 a pound. They are fresh-killed, never frozen, and must be ordered a month in advance of the date you want to pick up the bird. Do the math on an 18 pound bird, and gulp in horror.
So last night I set the alarm for 6:30 in the morning. When it went off, I said to myself, "Screw this. I'll get up an hour later and just serve dinner at 2 PM instead of 1 PM," and went back to sleep until 7:30.
At 7:30 I got up and set about the process of making dinner, getting the bag of turkey organs out of the bird, and dumping the turkey neck since I had no intention of trying to make gravy. (That's one kitchen skill I have never mastered. Life is too short to serve greasy glue to guests, so I just buy gravies at the store in a jar.) I stuffed the bird while listening to Arlo Guthrie's classic "Alice's Restaurant" on the radio - the local rock station plays it at 8 AM, noon and 6 PM on Thanksgiving; it's a tradition hereabouts - and got the bird into the preheated oven at 350 degrees F just as Arlo was finishing up the song.
According to both the New York Times and Fannie Farmer cookbooks, there is a simple formula for roasting a turkey. Take the bird's weight in pounds, and calculate the cooking time at 350 degrees F. at 20 minutes per pound. 3 pounds equals 1 hour of cooking time. Therefore, an 18 pound turkey should require 6 hours to cook. Given that I got the bird into the oven at 8:20 AM; and given it was chilled, not frozen; this means the bird should be done at about 2 PM give or take half an hour, and ready to bring to table half an hour later. I predicated all my side dish preparation on this.
At 11:30 I went into the kitchen to check on the turkey. The thermometer I had stuck into the breast said it was at 180 degrees F. - the perfect temperature for poultry. The leg-wiggle test confirmed the thermometer. The all-natural turkey, chilled, never frozen, was ready to come out of the oven -2 hours early.
My schedule was completely shot. So I shifted into high gear, dropped the oven down to Warm, whipped together my side dishes, and was ready to serve Thanksgiving dinner at noon. It's a good thing Her Imperial Majesty's uncle only lives next door!
The food got praised, but what happened? Why did that bird take so little time to cook? 3 hours for a bird that's supposed to take six? Are the laws of physics somehow different in my kitchen than anywhere else in the galaxy? I just don't understand it.
That all-natural, antibiotic-free turkey was unquestionably an Erma Bombeck Turkey. I just don't get it. I really don't.
Cyr- Some questions. Did you stuff it ?? If no, then the time is greatly reduced. Did it go into a high wall roaster or shallow pan ?? Difference in time as well. As a side note regarding gravy; sometimes I am lazy and buy store bought gravy. Then I boil the giblets. I eat the liver, then chop and pick everything else and add it to the gravy. Two tablespoons of the juices in the pan go in and no one will ever guess it's not homemade !!
__________________ I keep tellin ya Doc, I'm in pretty good shape considerin the shape I'm in !!
It was stuffed, and cooked in a standard supermarket high wall aluminum foil roasting pan, with no lid on it and no roast-in-bag.
And yes, it's a lot leaner than a Butterball-type turkey. Still, because I caught it at the right moment it was moist and not dry at all. Everyone (all three of them) said that it tasted great, so I guess that's what is really important.
