I have eaten a lot of turkey in my life. Much of it has been cooked at home, some at friends' homes, and even more at feasts hosted by my relatives. I do not remember my mother cooking a turkey when I growing up in the fifties in our modest home in Lewisville, North Carolina. It was just the two of us living there so it made little sense to cook a turkey. Holidays were always celebrated at my Aunt Molly's. Mother always cooked a ham (sometimes fried chicken) to take and the turkey or turkeys were there ready to eat when we arrived after the short drive to Yadkin County. I know Aunt Molly always cooked one and perhaps one of her daughters cooked another.
The first turkey that I remember being prepared in our house was cooked after we moved to the Mount Airy house with my dad. It was much more conducive to turkey feasts. That move happened in the fall of 1963 when I went away to military school. While we still attended the Yadkin County feasts, we now had feasts in our house at 347 West Pine Street. While I was aware of the turkey cooking operation, I did not really participate. My indoor cooking duties were limited to cooking bacon and sometimes a few eggs.
Military/high school did not last forever and I went to college in Cambridge. The first Thanksgiving at college, I did not come home but I got invited out by a college friend, Jack. We had a wonderful dinner and I got my one and only opportunity so far to sample stuffing with oysters.
The next memorable Thanksgiving happened after college. I had purchased an old farmhouse with a barn and 140 acres on the shores of the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia. Four of us had spent months remodeling the two-hundred year old house with hand-hewed beams. College friends came up to celebrate that first Thanksgiving on our own in the fall of 1971. We bought the biggest turkey we could find and the ladies in the group figured out how to cook it. I do not remember if they consulted Joy of Cooking or they had learned in their home kitchens. The turkey was near perfect even if it took longer than estimated. It was a wonderful meal with only some minor discussion about celery in the stuffing and pie crusts.
The next Thanksgiving, I cooked a turkey for the couple of us that were still living at the house. It turned out fine in spite of my not knowing to take the little package out of the turkey's cavity. At least I got it done on time which was better than the one that we had to cook the previous Christmas in a wood stove because the electric stove went on the fritz.
Fortunately for my turkey cooking future, I got married to a wonderful Southern girl in the summer of 1973 just in time for the next Thanksgiving. Once again I bought the biggest turkey I could find. My wife, Glenda, who was new to turkey cooking managed to wrestle it into the oven. Even then there were hints that the days of the big turkey were numbered.
We eventually uprooted ourselves from Nova Scotia and moved to a farm in New Brunswick. We continued to have turkey on special occasions like Thanksgiving. Turkey is not the cheapest meat in Canada so there was one Thanksgiving we thought about having a beef roast instead because cash was pretty short and in those days grocery stores did not take credit cards. We were raising cattle so we had plenty of beef.
Once we moved back to the states, we were in the land of cheap turkeys. By then Glenda was an expert if somewhat reluctant turkey cook. After we moved to Roanoke, Virginia, she set down a rule that there would be no turkeys in her oven larger than sixteen pounds. The last time I remember winning the battle for a larger turkey was Thanksgiving 2005. It was significant enough that I wrote this post, I Win a Turkey Battle.
It was a fleeting victory. Not many years afterwards, we did a Thanksgiving with our children but not at our house. This Thanksgiving away from home certainly hastened our turkey changes. Our turkey became a turkey breast and I think most of the ones that we have had since then have been turkey breasts. Only a few times did Glenda fall victim to the lure of whole turkeys priced at twenty-eight cents a pound. I did manage to get a couple of turkey thighs cooked with the breast one year, but I have learned to like turkey breast while still hoping for some dark meat.
We will hang on to our turkey traditions while now include a turkey breast and all the fixings. For Thanksgiving 2021 we already have a turkey breast in the freezer. It is a nice large one. There was a sliver of hope when I took Glenda to the opening of the Clemmons Aldi. They had whole Butterball turkeys at eighty-seven cents a pound. Most were over twenty pounds. Glenda didn't even slow at the turkey counter. Time to start looking for a deal on turkey thighs once again.
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