I heard on the radio today (KIRO FM, Seattle) a story that made my cynicism well up. It was basically a story about some people in the U.S. military playing a joke on a "Mexican" guy on his first thanksgiving in the States. Recounting the story in first person, she said that she replaced the turkey with a cornish game hen, and when the Mexican guy saw it he said, "You forgot to stuff it!"
She did not say if he was a U.S. citizen or not (must have been if he was in the military,) but even if he wasn't, I would have a hard time believing that he had never seen a turkey before. Given the high rate of "laugh at the foreigner" urban legends in the world, I question this story's voracity.
William Jones wrote: > She did not say if he was a U.S. citizen or not (must have been if he was > in the military,) but even if he wasn't,
A good story, one that I have not heard before but you do not have to be a citizen to serve in the military. In fact, joining the military is a good way to accelerate the naturalization process in the US. You do have to be citizen to be an officer, however, and the difficulty in getting a security clearance can limit the jobs open to enlisted non-citizens.
In article <Pine.A41.3.95b.961127134239.40380A-100...@homer26.u.washington.edu>,
William Jones <revb...@u.washington.edu> wrote: > I heard on the radio today (KIRO FM, Seattle) a story that made my > cynicism well up. It was basically a story about some people in the U.S. > military playing a joke on a "Mexican" guy on his first thanksgiving in > the States. Recounting the story in first person, she said that she > replaced the turkey with a cornish game hen, and when the Mexican guy saw > it he said, "You forgot to stuff it!"
> She did not say if he was a U.S. citizen or not (must have been if he was > in the military,) but even if he wasn't, I would have a hard time > believing that he had never seen a turkey before. Given the high rate of > "laugh at the foreigner" urban legends in the world, I question this > story's voracity.
> -Bill
I guess Cornish game hens are only used for practical jokes... has anyone actually bought one to eat?
Back in high-school, I worked as a bag boy (PC translation: Courtesy Clerk) at the Ballard QFC supermarket in Seattle. The day before thanksgiving, I helped this young couple out to their car, and they had one of those cornish game hens. They commented that they got it because their 5-year old son was insistent that they get the largest turkey possible. They bought the game hen to show to him when they got home, while exclaiming that it was the largest one they could find.
Kinda funny. I checked- they bought a full-sized turkey too.
>>I guess Cornish game hens are only used for practical jokes... has anyone >>actually bought one to eat?
>Oh yes.
Add another to the list. I've even cooked them with stuffing for solo Thanksgiving meals. (Though, these days, I prefer chicken vindaloo or spaghetti carbonara for my Thanksgiving meal.)
>Remembering our 'lecture' about traditional Thanksgiving food, our >mother purchased a real turkey the next year. Unfortunately, in a >moment of cleverness, she purchased one that had been deboned, >apparently to make carving easier.
In a distantly related note, the Wednesday (11/27) *Wall Street Journal* had an article about something that's currently popular in Lousiana, but spreading across the U.S.: the turducken. A boneless chicken, stuffed inside a boneless duck, with the combination stuffed inside a boneless turkey (and seasoned stuffing layered between the birds). The article quoted one one turducken maker describing the time he made a "pigturducken": same as a turducken, but with the turducken then stuffed inside a pig. He was also described as planning for this Thanksgiving (from memory: I left the *Journal* with the folks I had Thanksgiving dinner with.) a variation, with the chicken stuffed with a cornish game hen, and the turducken/hen como stuffed into an emu... (When I read this article to my hosts, one of them pointed out, "You know, there's a lot of room inside a steer...")
Then there's the Florida roofers who cook turkeys by wrapping them in foil and throwing them into the hot tar, and the grand tradition of deep-fried turkey...
> In article > <Pine.A41.3.95b.961127134239.40380A-100...@homer26.u.washington.edu>, > William Jones <revb...@u.washington.edu> wrote:
> > I heard on the radio today (KIRO FM, Seattle) a story that made my > > cynicism well up. It was basically a story about some people in the U.S. > > military playing a joke on a "Mexican" guy on his first thanksgiving in > > the States. Recounting the story in first person, she said that she > > replaced the turkey with a cornish game hen, and when the Mexican guy saw > > it he said, "You forgot to stuff it!"
> > She did not say if he was a U.S. citizen or not (must have been if he was > > in the military,) but even if he wasn't, I would have a hard time > > believing that he had never seen a turkey before. Given the high rate of > > "laugh at the foreigner" urban legends in the world, I question this > > story's voracity.
> > -Bill
> I guess Cornish game hens are only used for practical jokes... has anyone > actually bought one to eat?
> Back in high-school, I worked as a bag boy (PC translation: Courtesy > Clerk) at the Ballard QFC supermarket in Seattle. The day before > thanksgiving, I helped this young couple out to their car, and they had > one of those cornish game hens. They commented that they got it because > their 5-year old son was insistent that they get the largest turkey > possible. They bought the game hen to show to him when they got home, > while exclaiming that it was the largest one they could find.
> Kinda funny. I checked- they bought a full-sized turkey too.
> JK
When I was growing up, no one in the family liked turkey. We always had cornish hens for Thanksgiving dinner. It was a real treat to us kids, getting a whole bird to ourselves. No fight over the drumsticks. No fight over the wishbone.
> I have absolutely no idea how it was done. All I recall was a flat > (approximately 5 inches), turkey shaped 'thing' being brought to the > table. How they food scientists accomplished this culinery miracle > is beyond me.
My cookbook describes the procedure, which consists of cutting down the the bird's spine and basically pulling the bones out one part at a time. They make it sound simple, but an ordinary schmoe like you or me would probably end up deboning our own thumbs.
-- Kat Doty | Generic .sig dbea...@ix.netcom.com|insert random, snarky, non-P.C. kd...@tln.lib.mi.us | quote of your choice in this space.
In article <57q7uo$...@urchin.bga.com>, Dwight Brown <stain...@bga.com> writes
>the turducken. A boneless chicken, stuffed inside >a boneless duck, with the combination stuffed inside a boneless turkey (and >seasoned stuffing layered between the birds). >The article quoted one one turducken maker describing the time he made a >"pigturducken": same as a turducken, but with the turducken then stuffed >inside a pig. He was also described as planning for this Thanksgiving >(from memory: I left the *Journal* with the folks I had Thanksgiving dinner >with.) a variation, with the chicken stuffed with a cornish game hen, and >the turducken/hen como stuffed into an emu... >(When I read this article to my hosts, one of them pointed out, "You know, >there's a lot of room inside a steer...")
I heard about a traditional(?) Arab wedding feast which worked in the same way, but ended up with a camel as the outermost layer. Anyone else heard this?
Bill (Bill_Long...@callahans.demon.co.uk) "Be yourself. Nobody else would take the job."
In article <jwking-2911962220560...@f183-224.net.wisc.edu>, jwk...@students.wisc.edu wrote: >I guess Cornish game hens are only used for practical jokes... has anyone >actually bought one to eat?
We used to have Cornish Gamehens stuffed with Uncle Ben's (tm) wild rice. Quite tasty. Haven't had one in years (suddenly getting a craving).
To the person who said they had a deboned turkey - how do you debone an entire turkey without dismembering it first? Seriously - I cannot picture how this would be done.
> >To the person who said they had a deboned turkey - how do you debone an entire > >turkey without dismembering it first? Seriously - I cannot picture how this > >would be done.
> I posted the deboned turkey article....
> I have absolutely no idea how it was done. All I recall was a flat > (approximately 5 inches), turkey shaped 'thing' being brought to the > table. How they food scientists accomplished this culinery miracle > is beyond me.
Someone with better resources/more time than I might wish to call one of those many "honey-glazed-ham" places. Approximately 6 years ago, in one of those "elegant" magazines (Goodlife maybe?), they profiled one of these companies. They had developed a fabulous Holiday Meal (by mail order, I believe), which featured a whole, deboned smoked turkey stuffed with a boneless honey-glazed ham. Apparently, this sucker looked like a turkey, weighed around 30 lbs, and could be sliced like a loaf of bread, since it was boneless & totally edible. One of these things was supposed to feed something like 45-50 people.
So presumably *someone* has figured out how to collapse the infrastructure while maintaining fleshular integrity....
>>I guess Cornish game hens are only used for practical jokes... has anyone >>actually bought one to eat?
>We used to have Cornish Gamehens stuffed with Uncle Ben's (tm) wild rice. >Quite tasty. Haven't had one in years (suddenly getting a craving).
>To the person who said they had a deboned turkey - how do you debone an entire >turkey without dismembering it first? Seriously - I cannot picture how this >would be done.
Check out either of the following web pages. The first is Paul Prudhomme's recipe. The second is based on Chef Paul's (different seasonings) and has pictures at various stages.
Bob Hiebert wrote: >jwk...@students.wisc.edu wrote: >> I guess Cornish game hens are only used for practical jokes... has anyone >> actually bought one to eat? >They are delicious. No really. And they come in that handy single serving >package which eliminates that messy "carving the turkey" fiasco.
I seem to remember reading a newspaper article several years ago that said, in effect, there ain't no such animal as a "Cornish game hen". It stated that the CGH sold in stores was nothing more than a small (immature?) chicken.
Larry "in spite of which, they _are_ delicious" Kubicz lkub...@earthlink.net
In article <k7AxdGBQKnoyE...@callahans.demon.co.uk>, Bill Longley <Bill_Long...@callahans.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <57q7uo$...@urchin.bga.com>, Dwight Brown <stain...@bga.com> >writes >>the turducken. A boneless chicken, stuffed inside >>a boneless duck, with the combination stuffed inside a boneless turkey (and >>seasoned stuffing layered between the birds).
>I heard about a traditional(?) Arab wedding feast which worked in the >same way, but ended up with a camel as the outermost layer. Anyone >else heard this?
I believe (m*tt*) it goes: egg > fish > chicken > sheep > camel, or something similar.
-- E...@Gate.Net / An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy Eben King / of being called an idea at all. Oscar Wilde He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave. Sir William Drummond
In article <5826cf$...@wnnews1.netlink.net.nz>, all...@schools.minedu.govt.nz says...
[re Exploding Turkey, Howto]
>Take one deboned turkey. Cook. Insert balloon almost entire way. Inflate >balloon - use pump if necessary - and tie off. Complete insertion of >balloon and use small plug of stuffing as camouflage. Offer unsuspecting >victim^Whonoured guest opportunity to carve turkey.
>Steve "please tell me this isn't feasible > and I just have an evil mind" Caskey
No, you just have read Kurd Barks's Donald Duck comics at a too tender age.
S"open the bedlam, summon the grey wolves"S
-- "I tell you there are four thousand invisible pink lemmings with green mohawks waltzing atop your monitor lo this very moment. You are moved to deny my assertion." Madeleine Page (appr)
Larry Kubicz <lkub...@earthlink.net> wrote: > I seem to remember reading a newspaper article several years ago that > said, in effect, there ain't no such animal as a "Cornish game hen". > It stated that the CGH sold in stores was nothing more than a small > (immature?) chicken.
Cornish hens (originally marketed as "Rock Cornish game hens") are a cross between the Plymouth Rock hen (an American bird) and the Cornish or Bantam rooster. How about for simplicity's sake we just consider them small chickens?
Barbara "henpecked" Mikkelson -- Barbara Mikkelson | Does having two borgs in my killfile mean I've bha...@fas.harvard.edu | been reading AFU too long? - Pieter Breitner ----------------------------------------------------------------------- View a random urban legend --> http://www.best.com/~snopes/randomul.cgi
a...@ix.netcom.com (Adam Bradley) wrote: >To the person who said they had a deboned turkey - how do you debone an >entire turkey without dismembering it first? Seriously - I cannot picture how >this would be done.
Very carefully. You have to chill the bird nearly to the freezing point, and have a wicked sharp paring or boning knife. It usually takes a couple hours, as you have to stop & re-chill the damn thing or risk salmonella poisoning. The best stuffing is rice (wild or domestic), as it will hold its shape better. The end result IS spectacular--you can slice it right down the middle, where the breastbone would have been, and then crosswise; you get lovely slices of succulent white meat partially encircling the stuffing. If you also debone the legs, you get yummy dark meat pockets packed with stuffing. I have done this twice--I can give you the instructions, complete with diagrams, if you so desire.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you don't know how to use the English language." San Francisco Examiner rejection letter to Rudyard Kipling, 1889
In Article <32a514b0.16114...@news.mindspring.com>
eq...@mindspring.com (M.D.B.) writes: >On Mon, 02 Dec 96 16:45:24 GMT, a...@ix.netcom.com (Adam Bradley) >wrote: >>To the person who said they had a deboned turkey - how do you debone an entire >>turkey without dismembering it first? Seriously - I cannot picture how this >>would be done.
>I have absolutely no idea how it was done. All I recall was a flat >(approximately 5 inches), turkey shaped 'thing' being brought to the >table. How they food scientists accomplished this culinery miracle >is beyond me.
Take one deboned turkey. Cook. Insert balloon almost entire way. Inflate balloon - use pump if necessary - and tie off. Complete insertion of balloon and use small plug of stuffing as camouflage. Offer unsuspecting victim^Whonoured guest opportunity to carve turkey.
Steve "please tell me this isn't feasible and I just have an evil mind" Caskey
P.S. Keep cloth and spray handy for removing grease from walls, windows, ceiling, spectacles, etc. -- Just another mindless public servant at the Ministry of Education "If the Andrews Sisters, the Three Stooges and Vivienne Westwood were trapped on a desert island for a weekend with a case of kiwifruit liqueur, the resulting love child would be When The Cat's Been Spayed."
Larry Kubicz wrote: > Bob Hiebert wrote: > >jwk...@students.wisc.edu wrote: > >> I guess Cornish game hens are only used for practical jokes > >>... has anyone actually bought one to eat?
> >They are delicious. No really. And they come in that handy > > single serving package which eliminates that messy "carving > >the turkey" fiasco.
> I seem to remember reading a newspaper article several years ago > that said, in effect, there ain't no such animal as a "Cornish > game hen". It stated that the CGH sold in stores was nothing > more than a small (immature?) chicken.
Your first statement is incorrect. Your second statement is correct. Cornish game hens exist, but what you find at the grocery store is usually the "Rock Cornish Hen" which is a cross between the rather small Cornish Game bird and the tremendously large White Plymouth Rock. The hybred has a fantastic growth rate, so that at six weeks of age they can be slaughtered and processed to give a consumer product which looks like an adult Cornish Game hen, but which is much more tender (and in my humble opinion much less tasty). I used to raise them, and then let them grow to about six months of age, at which point I carted them en masse to Ziggy, the local processer, who would return to me the frozen birds for my freezer. They dressed out at about 9 lbs. at 6 months. I didn't let them get older than 6 mos. because they had grown so heavy they could no longer walk without tipping over. Absolutely delicious, almost as good as capon (of course the Japanese Beetles, dandilions, and other treats I fed them might have had something to do with the flavor).
In <57v16a$...@dfw-ixnews3.ix.netcom.com>, a...@ix.netcom.com (Adam Bradley) writes:
>To the person who said they had a deboned turkey - how do you debone an entire >turkey without dismembering it first? Seriously - I cannot picture how this >would be done.
Before Thanksgiving there was a front-page article in the Wall Street Journal about a Louisiana phenomenon called the turducken (or sometimes the chuckey). It's a deboned chicken inside a deboned duck inside a deboned turkey. The blend of flavors is said to be wonderful.
The article concluded by describing the ultimate: a deboned Cornish game hen inside a deboned chicken inside a deboned duck inside a deboned turkey inside a deboned emu.
In Louisiana Cajun country they are also known to deep-fry a whole turkey in one piece. (Yes, they empty the cavity first.) It's said not to be nearly as greasy as you'd expect.
-------------------------------------------- ----- John Varela j...@os2bbs.com ----- --------------------------------------------
Does anyone remember hering about how the Soviet Union used to blow a couple of million dollars a year pumping low frequency radio waves into the United States, on the pretense that it somehow made us crazy?
I heard they stopped during Gorbachov's regime around 1988 or so. Anyone know anything about this rumor?
Michael Schwartz <schva...@ix.netcom.com> wrote: >Does anyone remember hering about how the Soviet Union used to blow a >couple of million dollars a year pumping low frequency radio waves into >the United States, on the pretense that it somehow made us crazy? >I heard they stopped during Gorbachov's regime around 1988 or so.
It's possible that this is a confused re-telling of the fact that the USSR was experimenting with over-the-horizon (OTH) radar, which resulted in so-called "woodpecker" signals all over the high-frequency spectrum, including international shortwave broadcast and amateur radio bands. There was much hue and cry about this in the radio-hobbyist press. As I recall, it did stop a few years ago, probably during the Gorby years.
Add to this the fact that the US (I don't know about the USSR) uses very-low-frequency radio signals to communicate with submarines (or did), I think; and the fact that the USSR reportedly spent some money on research into ESP and psychic stuff; mix well, and you get the above story.
|Does anyone remember hering about how the Soviet Union used to blow a |couple of million dollars a year pumping low frequency radio waves into |the United States, on the pretense that it somehow made us crazy?
The USSR used to jam Voice-of-America broadcasts into Eastern Europe, although I seriously doubt it cost millions of roubles to do.
The jamming stopped sometime after the mid 80's.
Ted "but it's still a crazy country we live in" Wong -- Ted Wong <tw...@isis.com> |DISCLAIMER: |Isis' opinions are its own, Isis Distributed Systems |and do not necessarily reflect Ithaca, New York |mine.
Bill Longley (Bill_Long...@callahans.demon.co.uk) wrote:
: I heard about a traditional(?) Arab wedding feast which worked in the : same way, but ended up with a camel as the outermost layer. Anyone : else heard this?
Strangely enough, yes. And I can provide a cite, by way of wierd coincidence. Was digging through the old mess, err, room on the weekend, came across a copy of the 1987 Guinness book of world records, which had this tidbit somewhere in the food section while I browsed through it.
In a previous article, schva...@ix.netcom.com(Michael Schwartz) said:
>Does anyone remember hering about how the Soviet Union used to blow a >couple of million dollars a year pumping low frequency radio waves into >the United States, on the pretense that it somehow made us crazy?
>I heard they stopped during Gorbachov's regime around 1988 or so. >Anyone know anything about this rumor?
Sorry, no cites, but I believe the low frequency waves were actually an "over the horizon" radar. I'm not sure if it was theirs or the Australians that was called "Woodpecker" for the sound it made on radios tuned to the appropriate frequency.
-- Paul Tomblin, PP-ASEL _|_ Rochester Flying Club web page: ____/___\____ http://www.servtech.com/public/ ___________[o0o]___________ ptomblin/rfc.html ptomb...@xcski.com O O O
ptomb...@compass.xcski.com (Paul Tomblin) wrote: >In a previous article, schva...@ix.netcom.com(Michael Schwartz) said: >>Does anyone remember hering about how the Soviet Union used to blow a >>couple of million dollars a year pumping low frequency radio waves into >>the United States, on the pretense that it somehow made us crazy?
>>I heard they stopped during Gorbachov's regime around 1988 or so. >>Anyone know anything about this rumor?
>Sorry, no cites, but I believe the low frequency waves were actually an "over >the horizon" radar. I'm not sure if it was theirs or the Australians that was >called "Woodpecker" for the sound it made on radios tuned to the appropriate >frequency.
>-- >Paul Tomblin, PP-ASEL _|_ Rochester Flying Club web page: > ____/___\____ http://www.servtech.com/public/ > ___________[o0o]___________ ptomblin/rfc.html >ptomb...@xcski.com O O O
This thread made me laugh and even brought back some memories. I remember during the mid 80's I was stationed in what was West Germany and there was an article on this topic in the Stars and Stripes. It decribed a program the Soviet Evil Empire came up with to gain some advantage in a possible war with the NATO countries. Knowing that U.S. troops have this thing for "Military Image" while in uniform, they sent these high energy radio waves across the border that would soften the shoe polish on our boots, leading to scuff marks and the sort. The theory was that if we were spending all our time shining our boots, we wouldn't be prepared for a surprise attack from the east. I have no idea if it's true, but I laughed then, and 10 years later, still do.
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