We spent a recent evening in Perth WA catching up over dinner and drinks with cousin Andrew and his wife Kate. In the course of the evening we got to the topic of the Family Christmas Dinner, and for the first time I heard of an apparently memorable one in 1982, which we missed for some reason.
At this time of year between Thanksgiving and Christmas, on social media Americans share their baked turkey disasters, and this one ranks well up there with the most dramatic, though a Fire Brigade Finale was averted.
I am sure that when I was young, and for all the years until I married and spent some Christmases away from the family seat, we never had turkey, but nearly always had a goose. Looking back, that is now a very English choice, but over my lifetime Aussies’ tastes have moved a long way from traditional English food; a phenomenon I’ll write more about another day.
I’m sure, then, that Mum was not an experienced turkey chef, but the rest of the family would have contained a few confident experts, and I’m sure I could pick who they were…
As the main baked dish it was natural the bird would go in Mum’s oven. Everyone would have provided a major item of the menu, which was planned to be assembled and eaten at #6. Everyone was bid for the usual time, noonish, with the expectation of Christmas Dinner being served at somewhere around 2pm. I gather all was well in hand and seemingly on schedule, when someone realised the turkey was not in the oven, and that in fact it hadn’t even been thawed! I can only assume that by this time a couple of pre-lunch drinks had been enjoyed by all, because someone believed it could be thawed in hot water, meaning dinner would just have to be delayed a bit. It was placed in the laundry tub of hot water. After an hour and a half, sufficient of the outside of the frozen turkey flesh was soft to the touch, and so some expert deemed it ready to cook. By 2.45 the turkey was in a baking dish, covered with a large brown paper bag and loaded into a fairly hot oven. Neither Andrew nor Kate remembered which expert recommended the paper bag, or why … But anyway, more drinks were served, and bowls of festive mixed nuts were spread around to nibble on while everyone waited.
At around 5pm, smoke coming from the kitchen alerted all to the fire in the oven. Someone grabbed the baking dish+turkey and rushed to the laundry tub around the corner from the kitchen, and dunked the turkey back into the water that handily remained from the thawing process hours earlier!
I gather everyone had a little sliced turkey with the veggies and gravy, but it must have all been a bit peculiar, and I’m really sorry we missed it. I’m certain Kate and Andrew weren’t making this up, though most other likely protagonists in that tale have passed away, sadly leaving it unable to be corroborated. Ro and John feel they must have been present, but don’t remember the more spectacular details.
The takeaways from this account then are (1) that turkey is best left to Americans and even then they sometimes get it wrong, (2) if you must have turkey make sure it thaws properly in the frig for 2-3 days before cooking, and (3) skip the brown paper.
Have you decided yet what you’re having for this year’s Christmas dinner?