wombat_socho (wombat_socho) wrote,
wombat_socho
wombat_socho
  • Mood: cranky
  • Music: Devo - Timing X (radio hidebound)

Matt Yglesias is an ignorant, lazy snob.

I don't care if he likes turkey or not (it's a free country) but this little screed really annoys me. He accuses turkey of being bland and flavorless, which tells me volumes about his inability to cook, and makes a ridiculous analogy to greenhouse tomatoes, which are to Thanksgiving turkeys as fish are to bicycles. He also completely avoids the inconvenient truths (see what I did there?) that turkey is insanely cheap at this and most other times of the year*, it is traditional, and some of the side dishes he so likes are pretty sucky and worthless without that turkey to provide tasty nummy stock. Oh, sure, you could buy Stove Top stuffing and cook it up in a pan on the side, lots of folks do, but it's not the same as stuffing made from dry bread, onions, celery and whatever seasonings you think go with those, and stuffed up the bird's ass. Try doing that with a ham. Go ahead. I'll wait here. Show all your work, please. As for gravy, again, one could buy it in a jar, heat it on the stove, and dump it in the appropriate tureen while your fellow diners try to repress images of motor oil or less mentionable fluids. This would, however, be Wrong. And while we may not be professionals, we can at least make the attempt to do it Right, and doing it right involves turkey fluids and a neck simmering in the aforementioned fluids. Who cares if it's a little lumpy? It was Made With Love. Use butter if you don't like the gravy. You know, I can easily imagine this poser munching grimly on an "artisanal baguette from Safeway" instead of a turkey at Thanksgiving, and it just confirms my belief that this country is going to hell in a handbasket because of elitist jackasses like this. (Ed Cone via Instapundit)

As for my turkey, I haven't lost my chops after a couple of years off from roasting birds. Drumstick was a little dry at the end, but that's hard to avoid without wrapping the whole thing in foil**, and all other parts sampled were tasty, tender and moist. Not bad for a no-name $0.49/pound frozen turkey. I sliced off most of the breast meat, the remaining leg and wing, and filled two freezer bags with those; the carcass is going into the pot tomorrow to get boiled down and reduced to turkey gruel.


*but especially in November when every grocery store from Key West to Deadhorse is flogging the birds as loss leaders.
I already wish I'd bought two.

**Don't talk to me about cooking bags. Those have their place, but that place is not on my turkey. We don't cook these things just for the meat, you know.
Tags: food
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