DailyDirt: Turkey Turkey Turkey
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
It’s almost Thanksgiving (here in the US at least), and the traditional meal for this holiday is the humble turkey. So here are a few links about turkeys that might be informative or entertaining if this is your first time cooking a large bird. Have a fun (and safe) Thanksgiving, everybody!
- Underwriters Laboratories (UL) continues to deny a safety certification for any turkey fryers because they’re so dangerous if used incorrectly. UL even states that the risks are not worth a great-tasting bird. [url]
- Turkeys have been known to “attack” people when taunted. Wild turkeys make lousy house pets. [url]
- There are a lot of meaningless food labels for turkeys — such as “all natural” or “minimally-processed.” But if it’s labelled “fresh” that actually means the turkey has not been cooled below 26 degrees Fahrenheit and has not been fully frozen. [url]
- Alton Brown has a Thanksgiving turkey recipe that promotes the benefits of brining. Alton can’t guarantee that you won’t overcook your turkey, but brining increases the odds that a cooked turkey won’t turn out dry. [url]
If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.
Filed Under: food, holiday, safety, thanksgiving, turkey
Companies: ul, underwriters laboratories
Comments on “DailyDirt: Turkey Turkey Turkey”
Turkey fryers require lots of caution...
Whodathunkit… a few gallons of boiling oil is dangerous…
has any manufacturer been sued? I’d be surprised if there were some kind of class action suit out there.
Re: Turkey fryers require lots of caution...
Cyanide may be a hazard to your long term health. More at 11
Alton Brown is a god
Alton’s turkey recipe, when followed closely, produces the most delicious turkey I’ve ever had in my life. That shit is magic.
Wild Turkey
Well, as Voltaire said: “This animal is vicious– when attacked, it defends itself!” I’ve watched wild turkeys in the field, from about fifty feet away, and they just went about their business. They didn’t freeze up, the way deer do.
Incidentally, there is some doubt about whether wild turkeys are really wild or not. The suggestion is that they may be domestic animals which were imported from Europe, and went feral, circa 1500-1700, the same way that cattle, horses, and swine did. The argument is essentially untestable, for want of unambiguous evidence. At any rate, according to this untestable hypothesis, a turkey is supposed to be an African bird, which was imported to Turkey, and thus to Europe, and so to America.
Incidentally, here is a fifteenth-century French picture, from the Tres Riches Heures du duc de Berry (November), showing a swineherd and his hogs. You will notice that they aren’t appreciably different from Arkansas Razorbacks. What we thing of as a pig was specially bred, much later, to live in a pen and be fed food, instead of finding its own in the woods.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Les_Tr%C3%A8s_Riches_Heures_du_duc_de_Berry_novembre.jpg
When wild turkeys sneak up behind you while you are on a ladder, it can be just a bit startling.
“Turkeys have been known to “attack” people when taunted. Wild turkeys make lousy house pets.”
The former half of that phrase reminds me of four foul-mouthed 4th graders from Colorado? 😉