Thanksgiving 2010: The Year of the Black Bird

Today, it was left to me and my brother to fry a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner.  My brother John and I fried one up for a Super Bowl party at church about eight years ago (that lame Super Bowl with Oakland and Tampa).  From that experience, I learned that frying a bird is outstanding and that turkeys come with a bag of giblets rammed up into their cavity.  So this year, me and Jacob decided to fry one up.  After some debate and consideration of what the picky folks in my family would turn their nose up at, we decided to inject the great bird with melted honey butter and put a cinnamon rub on the outside.  For the record, I was skeptical of the cinnamon.

We used the peanut oil, but had to add a few liters of canola to it as we were short. It came to a boil more quickly than we had anticipated, so we slowly eased the bird in as it crackled and seared. The rule of thumb on frying turkey is 3.5 minutes per pound at 350 degrees. Once we put the bird in, it took a long time to get the boiling oil back up to 350. We pulled it out to take a look after 45 minutes and we were horrified at what we saw. The poor thing looked like a giant raisin. Blackened. Charred. I didn't want to take in the house. For you Lord of the Rings people out there, it looked like I was walking into the kitchen with the head of an Ork I had just slain. One by one the family would go into the kitchen and see for themselves if it really was that bad and return laughing.

Now, we did have a theory that it may not be thoroughly burnt and that the blackness was caused by the cinnamon rub (which, for the record, I was skeptical of in the first place). My brother John started carving the turkey and it appeared to me that the theory was valid. The meat looked good and tasted good. However, it didn't look like anybody was going to try it, so I grabbed a big piece of that blackened skin and ate it. And it didn't taste burnt, it tasted like that daggum cinnamon. My efforts to instill some confidence in eating the turkey wasn't effective. My family was thoroughly grossed out by this. My sister-in-law looked like she wanted to throw up. My brother said it looked like I was eating a bat. We did carve it up and get it on a platter, and I think everyone tried some. A few of the cuts I had were quite good.

It was actually pretty good, though. Everything was, as always. And the family got to have a lot of fun at me and the black turkey's expense.