Turkey in the bag
For some reason there was a time when my mother and sister went through a phase when they believed that the only way to roast a turkey was in a brown paper bag. Of course, turkey and bag went into a roasting pan but that was it. Turkey, bag, pan.
It needed to be a new bag, they always hastened to remind me and not one that you carried home full of groceries. Now I don't know about anyone else but that still didn't seem quite... sanitary enough. And for me to say that, me who, if my house was ever ransacked it would take me days to discover that, is saying a lot.
Now my mother and sister were two who when they gave you a suggestion, it wasn't a suggestion, rather an order. Heaven forfend if you should not take their 'suggestion' then my mother gave me that chicken neck look of hers and my sister would nag at me until I was ready to scream. They were more than welcom to cook their turkeys in a bag but I preferred my tried and true method...in a roasting pan sealed in aluminum foil until it was ready to brown. Still, no matter how perfect my turkey was, I had to hear about that damned brown bag.
Until that one Thanksgiving.
We were having it at my sister's house. I was to bring the bread and a green salad. I should have also brought my sister a mind because whenever she had to cook for someone, she regularly lost her mind. That year was no different. As dinner approached the kitchen resembled mission control dealing with a runaway rocket threatening to blow up the world. Only mission control would have had less stress. There was my sister, spatula in hand running back and forth babbling. There was my mother making REAL mashed potatoes, the kind with lumps that stick in your throat while I was given the important job of putting ice in the glasses. I was more than up to that task. Anyhow, as it drew closer to dinner it grew wilder in the kitchen. My sons disappeared somewhere, running for their lives, the husbands hid out in the living room and even her dogs had left us, they were later found hiding under a bed.
Finally the food was on the table, the turkey in its place of honor square in the middle. MY mother announced that it had been cooked in a paper bag and look how nice and brown it was.
Brown that gushed an ominous pink juice when it was cut into. The only thing pinker than the juice was the meat.
I suggested, gently, for my sister was still armed with that spatula that somehow had never touched any food during countdown, that maybe we should put the meat into the microwave for a bit.
"It's perfect' she snapped at me.
"it's pink, " I noted.
"The skin is brown," My sister insisted through clenched teeth. "When the skin turns brown the turkey is done."
"the meat is pink" Just the thought of it made me want to gag.
"It's done, " my mother chimed in. She who once made meatballs and noodles and poured the grease from the meatballs over the noodles instead of bothering to make gravy, "It was cooked in a bag after all."
I suggested that I nuke only the meat my family and I were going to eat. My sister raised the spatula. "It's done' she said in that high, don't you cross me voice she was so good at, "It's brown and when it's brown it's done."
I had no doubt that she would beat me over the head with the spatula, or shove me face down into the gravy where I would drown amid unstirred lumps of who knew what, or be pelted with lumps of mashed potatoes. So I backed down. But I wasn't beaten. I hissed at the kid on my right, "Don't eat the meat.' I hissed the same to the kid on my left and gave my husband a look that needed no words. We each took a piece of weeping pink meat, careful not it let its 'tears' touch the rest of our food and filled up with the salad I had brought because, as the kids said later, they knew it was safe.
That was the last thanksgiving at my sister's and since she refused to come to my house the next year, that was the last thanksgiving as an extended family. Which is fine with us. My older son and I get the meal done with no meltdown, our turkey is not only brown but white inside and there isn't a paper bag in sight. We've added ham to our spread and that, also, ISN'T cooked in a brown paper bag.
It needed to be a new bag, they always hastened to remind me and not one that you carried home full of groceries. Now I don't know about anyone else but that still didn't seem quite... sanitary enough. And for me to say that, me who, if my house was ever ransacked it would take me days to discover that, is saying a lot.
Now my mother and sister were two who when they gave you a suggestion, it wasn't a suggestion, rather an order. Heaven forfend if you should not take their 'suggestion' then my mother gave me that chicken neck look of hers and my sister would nag at me until I was ready to scream. They were more than welcom to cook their turkeys in a bag but I preferred my tried and true method...in a roasting pan sealed in aluminum foil until it was ready to brown. Still, no matter how perfect my turkey was, I had to hear about that damned brown bag.
Until that one Thanksgiving.
We were having it at my sister's house. I was to bring the bread and a green salad. I should have also brought my sister a mind because whenever she had to cook for someone, she regularly lost her mind. That year was no different. As dinner approached the kitchen resembled mission control dealing with a runaway rocket threatening to blow up the world. Only mission control would have had less stress. There was my sister, spatula in hand running back and forth babbling. There was my mother making REAL mashed potatoes, the kind with lumps that stick in your throat while I was given the important job of putting ice in the glasses. I was more than up to that task. Anyhow, as it drew closer to dinner it grew wilder in the kitchen. My sons disappeared somewhere, running for their lives, the husbands hid out in the living room and even her dogs had left us, they were later found hiding under a bed.
Finally the food was on the table, the turkey in its place of honor square in the middle. MY mother announced that it had been cooked in a paper bag and look how nice and brown it was.
Brown that gushed an ominous pink juice when it was cut into. The only thing pinker than the juice was the meat.
I suggested, gently, for my sister was still armed with that spatula that somehow had never touched any food during countdown, that maybe we should put the meat into the microwave for a bit.
"It's perfect' she snapped at me.
"it's pink, " I noted.
"The skin is brown," My sister insisted through clenched teeth. "When the skin turns brown the turkey is done."
"the meat is pink" Just the thought of it made me want to gag.
"It's done, " my mother chimed in. She who once made meatballs and noodles and poured the grease from the meatballs over the noodles instead of bothering to make gravy, "It was cooked in a bag after all."
I suggested that I nuke only the meat my family and I were going to eat. My sister raised the spatula. "It's done' she said in that high, don't you cross me voice she was so good at, "It's brown and when it's brown it's done."
I had no doubt that she would beat me over the head with the spatula, or shove me face down into the gravy where I would drown amid unstirred lumps of who knew what, or be pelted with lumps of mashed potatoes. So I backed down. But I wasn't beaten. I hissed at the kid on my right, "Don't eat the meat.' I hissed the same to the kid on my left and gave my husband a look that needed no words. We each took a piece of weeping pink meat, careful not it let its 'tears' touch the rest of our food and filled up with the salad I had brought because, as the kids said later, they knew it was safe.
That was the last thanksgiving at my sister's and since she refused to come to my house the next year, that was the last thanksgiving as an extended family. Which is fine with us. My older son and I get the meal done with no meltdown, our turkey is not only brown but white inside and there isn't a paper bag in sight. We've added ham to our spread and that, also, ISN'T cooked in a brown paper bag.
posted by ---me--- at Tuesday, November 22, 2005
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