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| Our 2015 turkey |
I've wanted to call the Hot..I mean, the Turkey Talk-Line for years, but my spouse, the family cook, has never needed turkey advice.
Comedian Stephen Colbert has made it a Thanksgiving tradition to call the Turkey Talk-Line with prank questions for years. But here, he turns the tables and take a phone call.
By the way, don't take his advice.
Tuesday, someone I know was concerned because she had purchased a 28 pound (12.7 kg) frozen turkey for Thanksgiving (November 23 this year, in the United States) and had tried online research to figure out how long to cook it. She had never cooked that big a turkey before.
Why don't we call Butterball? I asked. "OK, but you start the conversation" was her response. And so I dialed 1-800-BUTTERBALL. The phone was answered quickly by a woman.
Upon hearing of the 28 pound turkey, the woman exclaimed, "oh, you will have such a beautiful turkey when it is cooked. It will be golden brown; it will look like something in a Norman Rockwell painting! It will look wonderful on your table." Obviously, she sensed our hesitation. But she was totally prepared with advice.
She took us through the process. "You need to take the turkey now, today, and put it in your refrigerator. It will take that long to safely defrost." Then she explained how to pat the turkey dry, take out the giblets (these turkeys are prepped and almost ready to go). She gave us the oven temperature (325 degrees F), the fact that after a couple of hours we were to tent the turkey with aluminum foil, and the total approximate coking time (4 1/2 hours) for the unstuffed turkey. And, she recommended we use a meat thermometer and what temperature the breast, or the leg, should be before you consider the bird "done".
She talked with us as if she had all the time in the world (maybe, a week away from Turkey Day, she did have a lot of time. But, on Turkey Day, her and her co workers will field about 10,000 phone calls). And again, she told us how beautiful that turkey was going to look on the table. After our questions were answered, she asked for only one thing - what was our zip code (postal code)?
We answered, and she said "Binghamton, New York. Oh, I grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania!" (that's about an hour south of us). She closed by asking if we had any more questions (we didn't).
And so ended our conversation with the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line.
It did make me wonder who works for the Talk-Line, and if they enjoy talking turkey all day long.
So, an article about their experiences is quite fascinating, too, especially, when you get to the part about the 89 year old man cooking his first turkey. It sounds like such a fun place to work, if you are a people person.
Have you ever used the Turkey Talk-Line?
My mother told me that when my Dad's sister got married in the late 40's she decided to cook the Thanksgiving turkey for the family dinner. They were all sitting around my Grandparent's house and wondering what the strange smell was. Turns out she did not take the innards out of the turkey before putting it in the oven. We always would laugh about how it and found it it is not that uncommon among new cooks.
ReplyDeleteMany years ago, I spent a lot of time with that firm. Believe it or not, the town was BIRDSBORO!!!!!
ReplyDelete(Consider this. The firm processes a slew of birds in the autumn. When the temperatures cool. So, biological waste treatment is not as efficient. And, the system is now at higher load (from the more birds processed). Enter AT5N- a microbial adjuvant that ensures the plant removes ammonia efficiently- and discharges purified wastewater. That's the other side of cooking turkeys....)
What a fun post and link! When I first started hosting Thanksgiving over thirty years ago, my older sister was my Butterball hotline. We now live a couple thousand miles apart but still call each other on Thanksgiving morning but now we mostly talk about who's coming and what dishes we'll use on the table. Sometimes we discuss the dangers of frying (never tired it myself) and the possible benefits of brining.
ReplyDeleteI have never called them, but of course, I've never cooked a turkey. One of these days...
ReplyDeleteThe way my family always defrosted was to put the turkey in water the day before. Kind of overnight. Changing out the water occasionally. It worked.
Oh the things I discover here!
ReplyDeleteSteven Colbert was so entertaining! I have to admit that I've never cooked a turkey! I'm glad that there is a help line because the idea of cooking a turkey is kind of scary.
ReplyDelete