There is something iconic if not religious about the Thanksgiving turkey. Not since ancient Egyptian royalty has anything dead required so much attention. And even after all the maintenance demanded by this burly bird, we still need to cast 50 or so side dishes alongside it in supporting roles. The problem is that we have let tradition keep us from enjoying all there is to love about turkey. AOTL spoke with renowned turkey historian and chef Scut Hannah about our limited notion of turkey and how we take so much of out Thanksgiving centerpiece for granted. As it turns out, there is more to turkey than just light meat and dark meat. Chef Hannah arrogantly points out how much of the turkey we are missing out on.
FEATHERS
As it turns out, when we buy our turkeys plucked, we are ignoring some of the best eating the turkey has to offer. Hannah says nothing makes her more irate than the waste of turkey feathers every year.
"It's a tragedy. I'm glad my grandmother isn't around to see this," she says.
"Granny Mim used to make the most succulent sautéed turkey feathers. It was like eating slow cooked catfish gills only nuttier and richer . Sautéed turkey feathers were always the first thing to go at our holiday meals."
FOOT
As it turns out, gravity is not just for toilets anymore. "It's just like with people. A turkey's flavor is concentrated in the feet," explains Hannah."
Indeed, early Americans only ate the turkey foot, believing that consuming all other parts was a surefire way of contracting turkeypox. With demand so high for just the feet, turkeys nearly went extinct by the late 19th century in America. They would only make their comeback after Spain ceded all of it's turkeys to the U.S. following the Spanish-American War.
Thanks to a man named Ruben Wilson, Americans would begin to appreciate more of the turkey than just the foot.
"Wilson was an amateur physician who, in the 1920s set out to prove that turkeypox was not caused by turkey meat," says Hannah. "In public demonstrations Wilson would devour plates of turkey to the amazement of the crowd."
"In fact, Wilson simply liked his turkey prepared well done, whereas many meats of the day were enjoyed rare if not completely raw. What people thought was turkeypox was actually salmonella from eating raw turkey."
CARUNCLES
"I'm a caruncle freak" declares Chef Hannah. Caruncles are the colorful knobbed droops of flesh that dangle deliciously from the heads of birds such as turkeys. Caruncles are actually a collection of several structures of the turkey head including the wattle, snood, and beard.
"My absolute favorite are the snoods" Hannah says boastfully. "You cook them like you would bacon, but they taste more like a cross between tofu and okra. The texture is what you would expect. It's warty with a chew like toad skin. Absolutely delicious. Needless to say, caruncles didn't last very long in my house at Thanksgiving."
EYEBALLS
"Once you've eaten a turkey eyeball, you'll swear off legs and wings for the rest of your life" Hannah vows. "Turkey eyeballs didn't stand a chance in my house on holidays."
Dense with iron, manganese, and pupils, turkey eyeballs are credited with many health benefits including promoting a robust appendix and maintaining a firm buttocks.
"They're just like dark meat" Hannah says. "They're hard to overcook. They're really liquid-rich due to the gelatinous vitreous humor. My mouth is watering right now."
Though we have come to enjoy more than just the foot of the turkey, Chef Hannah and others like her are on a mission to raise awareness of the tastiness of the entire turkey for the sake of both economics and enjoyment. Yet if it seems like there's no part of the turkey Hannah would rather not gobble down her own gullet, guess again.
"I'm not a real turkey lung gal" she says. "I know it sounds crazy. I don't mind them so much braised, but why? By the time I'm full of feathers, feet, and eyeballs, I just don't have any more room for lungs."
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