I’ve realized lately that the good thing about not having a lot of experiences early on in life means that they are richer later in life when you have time to savor them. That has been true of painting, sewing, having blonde hair—all the things I’ve enjoyed this year. I don’t know if I savored this month’s task or not, because for me cooking has always been just that—a task. I have done very little cooking simply because I don’t really enjoy it. I come from a well, a short line of people who don’t like to cook. My grandmothers were good cooks, but my mom, though a good cook, dislikes doing it and she has passed down that distaste to her daughters. But this month I sought to conquer the distaste as my “first” was cooking the Thanksgiving turkey and dressing for my family.
One of the greatest joys of cooking, I am told, is cooking with others. And it might seem like a sweet and precious thing to cook Thanksgiving dinner with one’s mother, but on my first night back in the kitchen, things were neither sweet nor precious between my mother and me.
After a long, busy, tiring day, Mom and I joined forces to make homemade cornbread for the next day’s dressing (not to be confused with the Yankee’s version: “stuffing”). Since the cornbread has to cool before you crumble it to make the dressing, you have to make it awhile beforehand. At any rate, due to the time of day and attitudes of the cooks, making cornbread was far from fun. While I measured and mixed, Mom stood nearby, barking out orders and thrusting ingredients into my hands. We exchanged a few sharp words because she felt I wasn’t holding the measuring cup properly when I poured milk. I meanwhile was so concentrated on not spilling the milk that I didn’t heed her advice as to cup-holding form, which led her to say that I wasn’t really there to learn about cooking. While this was probably accurate, it seemed at the time like a low blow. When we were done making the cornbread, I put it in the oven to bake and threw out the following barb as I left: “I’m going to go write down what’s just happened here.” Which turned out to be a whole lot of nothing, but it seemed like something at the time. Her words to me: “don’t write anything ugly about me.”
I should probably say at this juncture that my mom and I have a very good relationship and that if she were ever to actually read my blog, I daresay she would find the incident amusing now.
The next morning, I managed to make the dressing without incident. Dressing is kind of an important part of the Thanksgiving meal in our house and there could be no room for mistakes. Thus, Mom hovered at my elbow the entire time, trying to step in and stir if I didn’t act quickly enoug. Nevertheless, the dressing turned out well.
Around noon, it was time to prepare the turkey for our evening meal. This was an eye-opening experience. As aforementioned, I never really cook and raw meat is fairly nauseating to me. I mean, I almost gagged at the chicken broth I poured into the dressing mixture!
Right away, Mom expected me to start pulling body parts out of the turkey right and left. It was a tough assignment; the turkey looked so much like a living thing—proud breast, taloned feet, wings tucked stoically by its sides. It was the first time in my life that I was face to face with the reality that turkey is more than a thinly carved piece of meat situated between the sweet potato casserole and green beans on my plate. Fortunately, there is no love lost between turkeys and me in general, so I was able to overcome this first hurdle quickly.
In addition, we didn’t have much time for me to warm up to the process, so I had to jump right in. I slid my hand down into its cold, slimy body cavity, searching for its neck, not knowing what a neck should feel like. (I shiver again just writing this.) When I failed to find it, my mom located a large, curved bone and wrangled it out of the poor guy.
At this point, my sister-in-law, Sara, another 30 year-old turkey-virgin, was watching and photographing as Mom, Vanna-like, showcased the heart and other internal organs. Next, it was time to season him, but first we had to pat him dry. I felt like I was bathing a newborn for the first time, raising up his hands and legs and patting him dry underneath. It felt very invasive and personal, but by this point I felt a strange affection for the little fella.
As we began adding flavoring to the turkey, however, he started to seem less like a bird and more like a tasty morsel. Mom and Sara were claiming his body parts before he was even cooked! Sara wanted his dark leg meat…and on reflection I think he would have been okay with that. Thus, I greased my turkey baby up with lots of butter, sliding chunks of it into his armpits and underneath his legs. We rubbed him down with salt, pepper, rosemary, and some other spice. Mom said he’d probably still taste like plain turkey despite the seasonings—and he did.
With the rest of his remains we were economical. The heart and other body parts went into a boiling pot of water to be cooked for the dog. And I began to reflect on the things I was thankful for following this experience.
1. I am thankful that our family doesn’t eat giblet gravy, now that I know what that is.
2. I am thankful that our family doesn’t put stuffing inside the turkey. Having seen what I saw and felt what I felt inside a turkey, I don’t want to see someone pulling a spoon out of that self-same orifice and plopping what comes out onto my plate.
3. Finally, I am thankful that I didn’t personally know my turkey before stripping him of his vital organs and seasoning him to taste. I have enough issues handling raw meat without hearing it “gobble” at me first.
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| Timid hands...at first |
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This one is a bit blurry but shows the frenetic energy needed to work that bird! --Sara quote |
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| Mother and Daughter Bonding over Butter and Bird |
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