Thanksgiving is associated with candied yams, cranberry sauce in a jellied cylinder shape, cornucopias filled with fruits and nuts as table centerpieces, turkey for the main course, watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade on TV, and perhaps a family friendly game of frozen turkey bowling to kick things off!
Thanksgiving is the busiest time of year for the workers staffing the Butterball Turkey Helpline. People attempt to cook giant frozen turkeys in all sorts of ways – in the oven, in the microwave, in a backyard deep fryer. I’d love to hear some of those desperate calls from first-time home cooks who have forgotten to thaw the frozen turkey or who have discovered that you are supposed to remove the plastic bag of giblets before placing the bird in the oven.
What exactly are turkey giblets? Giblets is the term for the edible internal organs of poultry often found packaged inside the cavity of whole turkeys or chickens. The heart, liver and gizzard can be chopped up as ingredients for making gravy or stock.
A gizzard is a muscular organ within the digestive tract of birds used to grind food since turkeys and chickens do not have teeth. I never knew that chickens and turkeys do not have teeth. Now that old phrase claiming that something is “as rare as hen’s teeth” makes perfect sense!
Are you familiar with the term “turducken?” No, it is not a curse word uttered by a frazzled home cook trying to find a pan large enough to accommodate the gazillion-pound bird for Thanksgiving dinner. A turducken is a deboned turkey that has been stuffed with a deboned chicken which is stuffed with a deboned duck breast. Seasoned stuffing is placed between each layer of poultry. This dish takes a lot of time and skill to prepare and is supposed to offer a unique combination of poultry flavors in every bite.
According to my internet research, Cajun chef Paul Prudhomme is often credited with having invented the turducken in the 1970s as a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken.
Before you pop that frozen turkey into the oven on Thanksgiving Day, your family may want to try a game of frozen turkey bowling. Usually played outdoors in the driveway, all you need is several bottles or bowling pins and then roll the frozen turkey towards them. According to the internet, participants can follow the standard bowling scoring rules. A “gobbler” is for two strikes in a row and a “wishbone” is for a 7-10 split.
Lots of people have grown up viewing the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in person or on TV. The original parade began in 1924 as a Christmas parade to celebrate the holiday season. That first parade featured store employees dressed as clowns and other characters, musical bands and live animals from the Central Park Zoo. In 1927, the live animals were replaced by large, helium-filled balloons. Re-named the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1930, more floats, balloons and marching bands joined the festivities.
Did you know that the first Mickey Mouse balloon appeared in the parade in 1934? The parade was suspended from 1942 to 1944 because rubber and helium were needed for World War II. In 1945 the parade was televised as a national event for the first time. In 1980, the Superman balloon set a new standard for balloon size at 104 feet long. Today this annual event includes thousands of participants and is enjoyed by millions of spectators around the world.
Kim Kovach wishes readers a very happy Thanksgiving! Visit Kim at www.kimkovachwrites.com.
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here