A THANKSGIVING MEMORY

Thankful I wasn't a turkey.

Thankful I didn't have to eat turkey.

WHERE ARE THE TURKEYS OF YESTERYEAR?

Thirty years ago I cooked a turkey.  It was the first turkey I'd ever cooked.   Of course I’d eaten turkey at home at Christmas with my parents and grandparents, but not often.  My family was not a bunch of great traditionalists and they had concluded, as many sane persons have, that turkeys are way too much trouble for insufficient reward.  They’re too big, they’re too dry, and if you cook one for Christmas you’re still eating sad leftovers at New Year.

But the first year I was married and had a home of my own, I decided I’d cook a turkey.  And as far as I remember it was pretty good, although my memories aren’t all that solid after thirty years, obviously.  I seem to recall wrapping a lot of bacon around the turkey breast.  This kind of thing, though obviously this isn’t mine:

And here’s the thing, here’s why I didn’t blog about this earlier, I know, I absolutely know, that somewhere there exists a thirty year old photograph, possibly a Polaroid, of me addressing the turkey I’ve just cooked, about to carve it.  In my mind’s eye I can even see the shirt I was wearing that day, but can I find the photograph?  Can I stuff?

And I’d really like to have it because if I did I could now do a compare and contrast.  Last month, for Thanksgiving, I cooked my second turkey, just 30 years after I cooked the first one.  It (and I) looked like this:

It was a good turkey, not too big, and not too dry, although, as we move towards the end of the first week in December we still have leftovers.  All in all we've declared it a triumph, if a small one.  The loss of the 30 year old photograph is, of course, a total disaster.  What’s the point of doing or cooking or eating ANYTHING if you don’t have a photograph to prove it?  I wonder when I’ll cook my next turkey.

THANKS FOR THE ANGST

Some surprisingly smart and clued up people in America have been known to say to me, with a sense of awe and surprise, “What? So they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in England?”

To which I reply that although by and large we’re pleased that the Pilgrim Fathers didn’t starve like dogs on their American adventure, the folks back home still don’t necessarily see it as a cause for nationwide celebrations.  We prefer to save our dry turkey and our family-related angst for Christmas.

Many Thanksgiving traditions are still pretty alien to me – not least the green beans in mushroom soup - but one tradition I rather enjoy is carved butter.  My local supermarket is selling butter in the shape of turkeys, moulded rather than carved I suppose, if you were being a stickler.

But here in Nicholson Towers we decided we’d go for something more hands-on, both more minimalist, à la Carl Andre, but also more ancient: I give you - Butter Henge.

It's handcrafted and artisanal, right?