Thanksgiving Turkey - Coming Soon at a Table Near You!

[rymrytr.livejournal.com]

Got this in an E-Mail last year. (See Website Link Below.)

"Historical Recipes For Inspiration only, not Ingestion.

The cooking times for these recipes are dangerous, but the information is of interest."

From: The Good Housewife's Jewell 1586:

To bake a Turkie and take out his bones. Take a fat Turkie, and after you have scalded him and washed him cleane, lay him upon a faire cloth and slit him throughout the backe, and when you have taken out his garbage, then you must take out his bones so bare as you can, when you have so doone wash him cleane, then trusse him and pricke his backe together, and so have a faire kettle of seething water and perboyle him a little, then take him up that the water may runne cleane out from him, and when he is colde, season him with pepper and Salt, and then pricke him with a few cloves in the breast, and also drawe him with larde if you like of it, and when you have maide your coffin and laide your Turkie in it, then you must put some Butter in it, and so close him up: in this sorte you may bake a goose, a Pheasant, or capon.

From: The Servant's Directory or Housekeeper's Companion Hannah Glass, 1762

A Turkey - A middling turkey will take an hour, a very large one, an hour and a quarter; a small one three quarters of an hour. You must paper the breast till near done enough, then take the paper off and froth it up. Your fire must be very good.

From: “American Cooke” by Amelia Simmons 1796 (the first American cookbook)

To stuff a Turkey

Grate a wheat loaf, one quarter of a pound butter, one quarter of a pound salt pork, finely chopped, 2 eggs, a little sweet marjoram, summer savory, parsley and sage, pepper and salt (if the pork be not sufficient,) fill the bird and sew up.

The same will answer for all Wild Fowl. Water Fowls require onions....

To stuff and roast a Turkey, or Fowl.

One pound of soft wheat bread, 3 ounces beef suet, 3 eggs, a little sweet thyme, sweet marjoram, pepper and salt, and some add a gill of wine; fill the bird therewith and sew up, hand down to steady solid fire, basting frequently with salt and water, and roast until a steam emits from the breast, put one third of a pound of butter into the gravy, dust flour over the bird and baste with gravy; serve up with boiled onions and cramberry-sauce (sic), mangoes, pickles or celery.

2. Others omit the sweet herbs, and add parsley done with potatoes.

3. Boil and mash 3 pints potatoes, wet them with butter, add sweet herbs, pepper, salt, fill and roast as above.

From: 365 Foreign Dishes: A Foreign Dish for every day of the year 1908 (Author Unknown)
Swiss Roast Turkey

Clean and season the turkey with salt and pepper. Then fill with 2 cups of bread-crumbs mixed with a lump of butter, some chopped onion and thyme, salt and pepper to taste, 1/2 cup of seeded raisins and 1/2 cup of nuts. Mix all well with 2 beaten eggs. Put turkey in dripping-pan and let bake a rich brown. Baste often with the dripping until tender. Serve with dressing.

French Turkey Soup

Cut off all the meat from left-over turkey bones. Put the bones in cold water and boil with 1 small onion, 1 carrot, 2 pieces of celery and 2 sprigs of parsley, all cut fine. Add 1 cup of tomato-sauce. Let all cook well, seasoned with salt and pepper. Remove the bones; add boiled rice and the turkey meat cut into dice pieces. Let boil and serve hot with fried croutons. (sic)

German Stuffed Turkey

Singe and clean a fat turkey. Season well with salt and pepper. Chop the giblets; add some chopped veal and pork, 1 onion, 2 cloves of garlic and parsley chopped, salt and pepper. Mix with 2 eggs and stuff the turkey. Put in the dripping-pan with some hot water. Dredge with flour; let bake until done. Baste often with the sauce. Serve the turkey with the dressing. Garnish with boiled beets sliced thin.

Bavarian Roast Turkey

Clean and season a fat turkey. Stuff with 3 raw potatoes, 2 apples and 1 onion grated. Mix with a lump of butter and 1 cup of bread-crumbs; add 1 egg. Season with sage, thyme, salt and pepper; then put in a dripping-pan. Pour in 1 cup of water and dredge with flour. Let bake in a hot oven until done.


Copyright The-Perfect-Turkey 2007 -- The Perfect Turkey

Comments

[outsdr.livejournal.com]

"Bake until done" Well, THAT will make it come out perfectly EEVRY TIME, won't it? lol

[wrongsidefoxrun.livejournal.com]

your icon is great just,made my night :3

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

I suspect that historical turkeys were quite a bit smaller than ours are now.

[teostra.livejournal.com]

Yeah, wild turkey can get big, but nowhere near the massive birds you pick up at the grocery store. They also don't have so damn much white meat, which is what causes the long cook times you have to normally use. If you deboned and parboiled an average wild turkey? An hour would be plenty of time to roast it.

[meezergal.livejournal.com]

"...[take] out his garbage" made me laugh! Also made me happy for precleaned birds of today.

[mac-arthur-park.livejournal.com]

I just had a flashback to one of my last T'days with my ex SIL. She only cooks once a year (no. Seriously) and got this recipe from gods know where that involved placing the turkey in a 500F oven for an hour, then turning the oven off for two hours and letting it sit there.

I'm a food service worker. Can I tell you how much this WAS NOT kosher with me?

That was the Ptomaine Turkey Year. Not to be confused with the year she made netted turkey rolls with apricot chutney, which was the Fruity Bondage Turkey Year.

Thank the gods I only have to deal with my batshit crazy MIL this year....who lets me and the spousebeast do all of the cooking. ;)

[rymrytr.livejournal.com]

Regarding the "size" of Turkeys; if you will go to the Link on the bottom of the article, to The-Perfect-Turkey dot com, there is a section on Turkey History.

He talks about the weight there and also about how Breeding and Corporate Greed has eliminated all but 4 of the "Natural" turkeys. Basically, when one buys a standard turkey at the local Mega Market, there is just one kind, generally speaking.

Wait, let me just post a direct Link to that part of his Website:

[xthexlonelyx1x.livejournal.com]

This creeps me out a lot. Especially the fact that the turkey is referred to as 'him'. Eek.

[rymrytr.livejournal.com]

Part of the reason is that, in the "old days", one always hunted the Male animal. Taking the Female meant preventing the future generations that she would have produced and thereby, cutting down on the supply. This was important, back when there were no stores or meat markets.

If you left 2 Bucks and 4 Does, there was meat for next year. If you left the Bucks and ate the Does, there was nothing later on. So, it became part of the language, to say "him".

:o)

[beansofdeath.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm being dumb, but what is unsafe about the first recipe? The turkey's being boiled, cooled, then baked, right? How is that dangerous? Is it the cooling part in between that's bad?

I'll confess to never having cooked a turkey. My mother still cooks turkey with the stuffing inside, and frequently complains that it's hard to find turkeys these days which come with the innards, as she uses them to make the stuffing.

[rymrytr.livejournal.com]

Part of this is that when you perboyle him a little, and then let the meat lay around to "cool", you take a chance on bacteria forming. How long is "a little" and what do you do with it, after it cools?

Every young girl and woman, worked daily, in the kitchen and knew from experience, taught by Grandma and Mom, so these missing instructions were not important. You learned how to do all this, and how long to cook things, etc., by daily "on the job training". :o)