Ann
Ipock
Humorist,
author, speaker
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Georgetown
Times
Happy Turducken
Day? I suspect foul play
By Ann Ipock November
22, 2006
I’m confused. In years past, the Thanksgiving meal my family ate
consisted of a few simple, basic, predictable (usually) dishes: turkey
and dressing with gravy and/or smoked ham, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes,
stuffed celery, deviled eggs, homemade biscuits and sweet potato pie.
Oh sure, the occasional squash casserole or broccoli salad appeared from
time to time; but nothing much more elaborate than that.
This holiday season I faced a learning curve of gigantic proportions when
watching the Food Channel. Did you know that from Nov. 11 to Nov. 23 you
could watch 88 separate dishes being prepared (not including reruns)?
A few of the more unusual dishes included orange-scented green beans,
sweet biscuit wreaths and Indian pudding.
This made me realize just how much things have changed for us baby boomers.
During Thanksgiving (or any other time, for that matter), if my mama had
opened a can of Del Monte green beans and scented them with orange anything,
we’d have carried her off to the funny farm. As far as wreaths,
we didn’t even have ones made of fresh greenery, much less ones
made out of biscuits. What’s the point? And Indian pudding? I don’t
think so. We didn’t even have butterscotch pudding back then. Of
course, that was all before the Internet, which changed everything.
In the span of a few days, this is what I saw on TV: Sandra Lee made a
roasted butter herb turkey with the help of her sister who — bless
her heart — only got about three minutes of air time. She was not
portrayed in a glamorous light either. Instead, she was relegated to merely
chopping onions. As it turned out, that happened to be a good thing because
she wasn’t quite as skilled (or careful) with that huge chopping
knife as her famous-TV-chef-sister.
To tell you the truth, I didn’t come away with any new ideas though:
Sweet onion tartlets didn’t sound too appetizing and cranberry molds
are something I already make: Just refrigerate your Ocean Spray can of
cranberries, open it up at both ends, and out slides the molded cranberry
loaf. Slice and enjoy!
A little later, I saw “Rachel Ray’s Thanksgiving in 60.”
You gotta hand it to her. Sure, she’s fast. Heck, she can whip up
a feast in 60 minutes (woo-woo, that’s exactly two of her normal
time slots); but tell me this: How many people can two puny old turkey
breasts feed? In my family, only one, hubby Russell. So, what are the
rest of us supposed to eat? There again, I didn’t come up with anything
new: Spanish nibbles (hot olives with almonds and chick peas) seemed a
little too fussy. And pumpkin soup was out of the question. I don’t
like pumpkin anything.
Guida deLaurentis, another TV chef, made turkey and cranberry ravioli.
Guida never strays far from her Italian roots — I’ve got to
give her that. I guess since Christopher Columbus was born in Italy she’s
got a point there, though experts still argue over his Spanish heritage.
Still, I don’t think the original Thanksgiving feast of our forefathers
featured grilled calamari on a bed of shaved fennel. But I could be wrong.
The one dish of hers I’d
love to try is baked ziti with meatballs; but that doesn’t seem
to meld too well with the other Thanksgiving flavors.
However, the biggest shock of all was Paula Deen herself making this little
ditty called turducken. (I bet you can’t say that three times fast
after drinking a tall mimosa.) It turns out turducken is a deboned turkey
stuffed with a deboned duck stuffed with a deboned chicken.
Most chefs then add a couple of varied stuffings to the cavities of the
entire thing. Ole Paula surprised me with her choice because although
the dish is Louisiana Southern in origin (thought to be Cajun), it’s
not Georgia Southern. Plus, it’s way complicated — taking
a full 8-1/2 hours to PREP and 5 hours to COOK! Fat chance I’d spend
that kind of time in the kitchen for a holiday or any other day.
Heck, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear there was a man behind
this idea — someone like, say, Russell — which leads me to
suspect “foul play,” if you will. Think about it: With this
dish, you wear yourself out prepping, cooking and cleaning (over 13 hours
in a 24 period) — and that’s just the turducken — not
including side dishes. So, how in the world is a woman, like, say, me
supposed to be up and out the door by daybreak the following morning,
rushing to the stores for the absolute busiest (and best) shopping day
of the year? Not going to happen. Instead, a honey baked ham has my vote
this year.