omorka | American Bird

As a much younger lifeform, I absolutely detested turkey, save for once a year. It appeared every Thanksgiving, a luscious and flavorful whole bird - and then promptly transformed into an unending series of cold, tough, coarse lumps lying sullenly on squishy white bread. I never understood what my parents saw in such meals, although in retrospect I suspect that the vast amounts of mayonnaise and mustard my father slathered on such sandwiches reflected a certain similar feeling. The rest of the year, it came in the form of textureless ovals in plastic packaging, presliced and pale; often I could avoid it, as my parents usually bought more than one type of cold cut.

One of the benefits of growing up is that you get to try new foods, and old ones in new ways. While a whole turkey, even a small one, is too much for just two people, it turns out a small whole turkey breast, roasted, is enough for about three meals for me and the Spouse. The loss of the dark meat is no loss at all for me, and only a small one for him. And he's more than happy to make a meal of a few slices of cold leftover white meat on bread; I'm not - but there are so many things one can do with cooked leftover poultry other than sandwiches that sometimes the half-carcass doesn't even make it to soup.

So I have been somewhat perplexed to find that most people don't make turkey outside of the winter holiday season - one for Thanksgiving, and sometimes one for Christmas (although some people's family tradition is ham or roast beef), and that's it. Leaving out the vegetarians who wouldn't prepare it at any time, I have to wonder why. If one doesn't care for turkey at all, that's one thing - I can easily imagine preferring the milder taste of roast chicken, or the stronger one of roast goose, and thus just preparing different fowl. But if one does enjoy turkey at Thanksgiving, why would one prepare it only once a year? Is it just the force of holiday tradition? Because it takes too long?