He says "vehicle for gravy" like it's a bad thing.

Turkey is the platform for all those side dishes, the bass-line of the song. Also, it looks really good on the platter.

We've been frying turkey for years, in part because it's fun; you can do other good stuff with the oil, too. My sister cooks a breast in the oven, too, so the stuffing will have flavor and because some people like tradition.

Some alternatives.

Updates here and here.

Comments

[Ian McDowell]

Van Loy II on Farmington Road, a restaurant that's MUCH better than the ignorant white guy review Bachelor gave it a few years ago, sells whole Chinese barbecued turkeys for about $35. At least, that's what they cost when we bought one two years ago. The turkey was of a good size and came with a generous array of both traditional American and traditional Chinese fixings. Some of the American fixings tasted a bit off (mainly the gravy), but they were still pretty good, and the Chinese ones were delicious.

They also sometimes sell whole suckling pigs. I've been meaning to get one of those. As far as their regular eat-in meals go, nothing beats the roasted or barbequed duck. You can get half a duck, chopped up and with a generous portion of rice, for $11, and that will feed two people, even if one is Timbo. If one of those two people is my friend Doc the Biker Paramedic, you're better off paying $22 for a whole duck, but otherwise, a whole duck feeds four people (or, in the case of the last time I ordered it, four adults and two children).

[Paco Wové]

This is, of course, garbage, like everything else Yglesias has ever written.

[Smilin' Jack]

"vehicle for gravy" made me think we were going to talk about the bailout. Wasn't expecting anything about food.

Well, here's hoping the gravy served up to the Wall Street fat cats this Thanksgiving season was to their liking. It's certainly going to cost us enough.

[Steve Skubinna]

Every holiday season we can expect edgy, transgressive articles like this one, boldly confronting the bourgeoise squares with a hip, too cool for school hatred of turkey.

And yet, the oblivious petit bougeoisie keep consuming turkey, as though they don't even care! They even act as though they enjoy it! What's a hipster to do?

These are the same yuppie scum who, wanting comfort food, have to dig up Mom's old recipes. They must tweak them, of course, otherwise the bored irony is too heavy to bear. So Mom's meatloaf is made with Wagyu beef. Her mac 'n' cheese has to have whole wheat rotini and Venezuelan beaver cheese. You want oatmeal, God forbid it come from a carton with the smiling man in black on it - no, it has to be imported steel cut Irish oatmeal that nobody back in the old neighborhood even knows about. That's how you show how stupid the old family is, and score major street cred. Double points for wearing a bowling shirt to the meal.

[EscutcheonBlot]

Ignorant to be sure...though he did have one good point right at the end. American Turkeys are just too damned big. It's no wonder that they taste drier and drier and less and less interesting. It takes too long to cook the things.

Better to buy two ten-pounders than one twenty. It'll taste better, and the extra work is negligible.

[Beelzebubba]

why not eat the turkey from the shell a few hours before it hatches?