Mired in the midst of the holiday season we sometimes mark the moment in reflection, circadian beings that we are. But first we must deal with the feast; tables piled high with pheasant and grouse with large flagons of mead ready to slack the thirst of the mighty warriors who risked life and limb to…..to……oh wait that was the Middle Ages. Nevermind.
Turkey is the traditional centerpiece of the Thanksgiving and Christmas tables. Before you begin to roast the bird you must remove the little bag of, well, things which can then be used to make gravy. Generally speaking one should never eat organs unless it’s the zombie apocalypse and you are, well, a zombie. Nevertheless as a child I developed a taste for turkey liver, which sounds like a ceremonial dish served in an ancient rite of passage around a Serengeti campfire. As a point of grammatical order, the words “child”, “turkey” and “liver” should never appear in the same sentence, unless surrounded by protective quotes.
Anyway the next step is to pack the turkey carcass with a mass of bread and seasonings called collectively, stuffing, which will cook along with the bird. So popular is stuffing that dozens of recipes exist and it is possible to buy it premade to be prepared outside the bird. I was going to list some of the various kinds of stuffing but there are quite literally hundreds. In Hawaii, I used to have stuffing made with taro, the root vegetable used to make poi.
Stuffing is great and my favorite part of the feast. Surprisingly my taste for the turkey itself has lessened over the years, unless it’s part of a turkey club sandwich then lemme at it, and bring on the mead.
whoisfenton 