Turkey, Turkey

Oh my. It is almost Thanksgiving Day! Time to get the pies baked, the rolls made, the dressing/stuffing prepared, the turkey thawed and in the oven...

Oops. Thawed. What a nice word. I like that word. For some reason when I put 'turkey' and 'thawed' together, I get a nice picture in my mind, a comforting picture, kind of like this one:Butterball, whole frozen turkey webpage

I thought Julia was going to pick up two turkeys at the market. One for me to bake and one for her to bake for our Thanksgiving meal tomorrow. I probably came to this conclusion because I know I just cannot go to the market and buy one myself. Somewhere in our conversation, I made the assumption that she would go buy them like she did last year (Mel and I were in the States at this time last year).

I cannot do it. Well, if I was starving I would go to the market and buy a turkey by myself. Actually, that is not true. If I was that hungry I would go to the market and buy some cheese and bread and veggies....but I would stay away from the meat section of the market. If I had to buy meat at the market all the time, I would be a vegetarian. Anyone who knows me well knows this is very true. Mel has said on many occasions that the reason I did not marry a rancher in Montana is because that poor rancher would have a herd of cattle dying of old age.

I'm not sure when this happened to me. I have shot at, but never hit, a deer. I have helped hang, season, butcher, freeze and cook venison, which is deer, and elk and even part of a moose. I have helped butcher a cow. I have butchered a pig and eaten it's meat - although that was harder for me to do, the eating part, the butchering was fine. It's the eating it after I butcher it that has become harder and harder for me. It's like I know that piece of meat too well to actually want to ingest it. I'll cook it for you, just please don't make me eat it.

My grandparents had a small ranch when I was young. I remember butchering time. Cows, pigs, chickens. I helped kill, pluck, clean-out, butcher and freeze many chickens when I was a kid. I thought it was great fun then. Well, maybe not great fun, but I aways felt very grown up and proud that I was helping to provide food for the winter, etc. I haven't been involved in the process of chicken killing to chicken eating for a very long time.

Sigh.

So, when Julia and I talked on the phone the other day and I discovered that I had made a bad assumption, I was almost sick to my stomach. I have been to the meat section of the outdoor market just a few times in 10 years. I practically have to hold my nose when I go in that building in the summer, the smell gags me. The pig heads don't bother me. The piles of meat don't bother me. It's the smell.

And the dead birds of several species bother me. A lot.

They lie there on the tables, flies buzzing around, no cooling, the fat turning yellow due to the heat, and so forth and so on and all I can think of is
FOOD POISONING!!!!!!!

I was a professional cook for several years, at 4 different camps and lodges at different times. The Colorado Department of Health often did surprise inspections, checking to see that our water was hot enough for washing dishes, that the food was kept in correct containers, that appliances, counters, floors were clean, and that hot food was kept at the correct temperature before serving and cold or raw foods were kept at the correct temperatures as well. We always passed with flying colors.

So now I go into this market and I see these dead birds, out in the open air, heat, germs, flies.... Even thinking about it makes me sick. Why the beef and pork kept in these conditions doesn't quite have the same reaction in my head, I don't know. Maybe because I know bird can go bad so quickly?

I have no idea, really, how the birds sold at the supermarket are treated, except for the fact that when I buy a chicken there, the fat is still white, not 'heated up' yellow, so I can make an assumption that they have been kept frozen or at least colder. I would rather have a frozen bird than a 'heated up' bird any day.

Thats me.

So, I told Mel I was going to have to go buy a turkey. Maybe I looked a little green around the gills. Maybe he could see that I was starting to sweat. I'm not sure what it was. (The begging and pleading with my eyes, maybe??) He said to me, "I'll go buy your turkey."

However in the world am I ever going to be able to thank him enough? {Big smiles}

Mel arrived home with this:
I opened it up in the bathtub and found this:
I need reading glasses now and have a cataract in my right eye and lots of floaters in my good eye that cause me problems at times when I am looking at things. I still understood, looking at that bird in the tub, that something strange was wrong with it's innerds. Mel got the tongs and I pried it out:I just knew that was the head, they always sell the head with the chicken or turkey at the market, I just didn't expect it to be IN the bird...

What I did not take a photo of was the feet I pulled out after the head, the huge liver, the huge gizzard and gobs of fat.

I saved the head, the feet and all the innards and fat, froze them and will give them to my tutor to do with them whatever she pleases (she feeds street cats and dogs, but she might want them for herself.) I had to cut the turkey into pieces to make it fit in my crock pot. I'm cooking half of it now and will cook the other half when the first half is done. The oven is busy with other goodies - pies, rolls, cornbread for the dressing.

Yes, it is Thanksgiving. I am thankful for the turkey. I may not eat any of it myself, there is a good chance I won't - I know this bird too well now. But the other things are going to be great!!

ha ha!