Re: I almost got fucked by Butterball!
trainfan1
> I went out and got a nice Butterball turkey this afternoon in
> preparation for the big day. It's a nice bird of 19 pounds and labeled
> "FRESH-Never Frozen". Well, guess what? The damn thing and the other
> thirty were almost frozen solid. The store put them out before
> completely thawing them out. I raised hell since the "Fresh" bird was a
> $1.29 a pound while its frozen counterpart was $0.99 a pound. I did get
> the "Fresh" one for 99 cents a pound for pointing this little detail out
> to the manager. Fucking thieving bastards. I'll bet they learned this
> from PayPal's "Always free" promise.
>
>
>
>
>
> Rita
>
You still got a raw deal. Our 27.6 lb. turkey was only $8.00 at
Wegmans. I'm complaining because they were only .19/lb at Tops,
Wegmans, & Martin's Last year.
Rob
Dick Margulis
> trainfan1 wrote:
>
>> You still got a raw deal. Our 27.6 lb. turkey was only $8.00 at
>> Wegmans. I'm complaining because they were only .19/lb at Tops,
>> Wegmans, & Martin's Last year.
>
>
> loss
> leader no-name turkeys in the freezer case next to the Butterballs. My
> preference is Butterball.
>
Couple of comments. First, _fresh_ turkeys are packed in crushed ice. It
is not unusual for there to be some amount of surface freezing depending
on where in the truck a particular case is located. That's not the same
as the hard-as-a-rock flash frozen birds that were packed
who-knows-when. Neither you nor your family nor your neighbors would be
happy with a fresh turkey that was shipped and stored at warmer
temperatures.
Second, why, pray tell, do you like Butterballs? They're pumped full of
crap to bump up the weight by ten percent (not a bargain for you, in
other words); and who wants to eat that junk? Those brand X,
non-injected birds actually taste like turkey when you're done with them
instead of textured saline solution.
trainfan1
> trainfan1 wrote:
>
>> You still got a raw deal. Our 27.6 lb. turkey was only $8.00 at
>> Wegmans. I'm complaining because they were only .19/lb at Tops,
>> Wegmans, & Martin's Last year.
>
>
> Nope! I'm sure they weren't Butterballs? They had the same low priced
> loss
> leader no-name turkeys in the freezer case next to the Butterballs. My
> preference is Butterball.
>
>
>
>
>
> Rita
>
There's nothing special about a Butterball... or Land-O-Lakes, or
Eggland's Best... or... (... ...put your national brand of commodity
food product here)...
Rob
Ruzinthra the Ruki
<lmse...@usdatanet.net> choked out these words:
>There's nothing special about a Butterball... or Land-O-Lakes, or
>Eggland's Best... or... (... ...put your national brand of commodity
>food product here)...
Promised Land Egg Nog is fucking amazing.
http://www.promisedlanddairy.com/web-content/Our%20Products.html
John Passaniti
That was your first mistake. You live in a time when you can have
nearly *anything* that you would want to eat delivered to your local
stores or your own home. So why would you want boring turkey?
Mindless traditional kills. Explore the edges-- life is far more
interesting there.
My favorite Thanksgiving dinners have always been when the family has
gone out to a restaurant. No preparation, and everyone is free to order
what they want. Then we can go home, and not have to clean anything.
Scaly Lizard
Egglands Best advertises no hormones, don't they? That's worth
a bit extra to me. Helluva Good is pricey and worth it... but i have
to wait until it's on sale.
As for turkeys, the cooking is the key. Butterballs have the
injections and whatnot to make the cooking idiot-proof. But
any turkey can sing you an oral aria if you pay attention to it.
Get an injection baster. Take some of the drippings, add
clarified butter, and the S's (savory, sage and salt). Inject
the slop into the bird at 45 minutes, then again at 1:25. Mmmmm.
I could never go out to a restaurant on Thanksgiving. Making
those poor people go to work to serve you on T-Day is
unconscionable. You don't get the family feast experience
at a restaurant: you know, one relative planted in front of a
football game, two more playing cards, various people in and
out of the kitchen constantly arguing about this or that stuffing
and kids putting olives on their fingers to scare the baby and
the always-rancorous debate over cranberries: lumpy or jello-y?
I want answers: why can't we cook geese, and why
doesn't anyone ever make mincemeat anymore?
SL
Dick Margulis
>
> Egglands Best advertises no hormones, don't they? That's worth
> a bit extra to me.
I dunno. What's the hormone load on eggs? I think the hormone-laced feed
is used for broilers, not layers; so it may be that no laying flocks get
hormones. Same question on antibiotics: IF the flocks are treated, what
is the resulting load in the eggs? Just a question.
Helluva Good is pricey and worth it... but i have
> to wait until it's on sale.
It's okay. Take it or leave it. Cabot Extra Sharp, though. Mmmmmm.
> Get an injection baster. Take some of the drippings, add
> clarified butter, and the S's (savory, sage and salt). Inject
> the slop into the bird at 45 minutes, then again at 1:25. Mmmmm.
Not a big fan of sage, but I love savory. Thanks for the tip. Maybe just
a teensy bit of sage?
>
> I could never go out to a restaurant on Thanksgiving. Making
> those poor people go to work to serve you on T-Day is
> unconscionable. You don't get the family feast experience
> at a restaurant: you know, one relative planted in front of a
> football game, two more playing cards, various people in and
> out of the kitchen constantly arguing about this or that stuffing
> and kids putting olives on their fingers to scare the baby and
> the always-rancorous debate over cranberries: lumpy or jello-y?
There are rare occasions when it is good that you can get a Thanksgiving
dinner in a restaurant, and for some people, it's really a lifesaver.
But John's notion of just going to some random restaurant and eating
something other than roast turkey is blasphemy. Thanksgiving is the
Great American Holiday. No presents. No sectarianism. No church
services. Everyone (except John) communing with the rest of the American
polity in a homegrown ritual that is largely invariant across
religiousl, ethnic, and racial groups. It is the single feature of our
culture that does the most to unite us, with better participation (by
far) than elections, military or voluntary service, churchgoing, or even
Super Bowl watching. Shame on John!
>
> I want answers: why can't we cook geese, and why
> doesn't anyone ever make mincemeat anymore?
>
No one makes mincemeat for a few reasons. In the lifetime of anyone
reading this, mincemeat has been a fruit compote. There has been no meat
involved, except in the name. This confuses people. It either leads
people to wave their hands in disgust and say, "No thanks!" because they
think it IS made of meat and they can't imagine how that could be good
in a dessert pie; or it leaves them perplexed because they're not
getting what they think they paid for. Another reason is that the flavor
itself has an eighteenth century style to it--heavily pickled,
overspiced, oversweet, overcooked, gunky little schnibbles--out of
keeping with modern culinary sensibilitie. A relic of life before
refrigeration. Another reason is that if you make it the traditional
way, you need suet. Who wants to eat suet? It just SOUNDS
disgusting--all that hard fat just clinging to your arteries before you
even finish a piece of pie (never mind that this is an absurd, paranoid
fantasy).
Goose is another matter. We associate it with a British Christmas.
Turkey is the American Thanksgiving bird, to be sure (although the
turkey we eat is native to Mexico and is quite different from the wild
turkey the Pilgrims ate). But beyond that, we've gone from a nation with
more domestic geese than people in 1890 to a nation where goose is a
rare deviation from the normal holiday bird. As a consequence, we've
forgotten (as a country) how to cook it (although one could argue that,
under the present administration, our goose is being cooked, I suppose).
A goose is not a small turkey. You have to deal with the fat. There are
a few approaches. Probably the least successful is the Norman Rockwell
vision of a golden roast bird lying on the table, ready to be carved.
Makes for a good picture, not so much for good eating. If you want to
cook a goose with the skin on, you need a high enough temperature to
render out most of the fat during the roasting process, resulting in a
quite dark and crispy skin. A second approach (theoretical, because I've
never seen it done) is to skin the bird and roast it whole. The third
approach, more of an Eastern European style, is to skin and joint the
bird and lay the pieces on a thick bed of cabbage and onions or
sauerkraut and onions and roast it. This results in a big platter of
meat, but nothing to take a picture of in the middle of the groaning
board. Thus it's not really associated with holidays.
John Passaniti
> There are rare occasions when it is good that you can get a Thanksgiving
> dinner in a restaurant, and for some people, it's really a lifesaver.
> But John's notion of just going to some random restaurant and eating
> something other than roast turkey is blasphemy. Thanksgiving is the
> Great American Holiday. No presents. No sectarianism. No church
> services. Everyone (except John) communing with the rest of the American
> polity in a homegrown ritual that is largely invariant across
> religiousl, ethnic, and racial groups. It is the single feature of our
> culture that does the most to unite us, with better participation (by
> far) than elections, military or voluntary service, churchgoing, or even
> Super Bowl watching. Shame on John!
What a weird interpretation of my message.
When my family has gone out to a restaurant for Thanksgiving, it was
anything but a random choice. And the key word to note is is *family*.
This isn't just Phil and I going out, but the *same* large, extended
family that would have gathered together to make and eat a turkey. We
collectively decided to break with that tradition and start a new one.
In the process we learned:
1. It allowed everyone to be far more relaxed; there was no stress in
creating dinner.
2. The people who previously were spending their time fiddling around
with dinner could now enjoy actually being with the rest of the family.
3. After dinner we all went back to the *same* house we would have had
a standard turkey dinner. But instead of cleaning up a mess and having
the family fracture into groups, we all ended up spending *more* time
with each other and so was a more memorable and meaningful time together.
In other words, our family figured out that what we liked best about
Thanksgiving wasn't the turkey, but the *family* gathering. And so we
retained the best part of Thanksgiving while giving up a part nobody
really cared about (the boring turkey dinner).
Lots of people have a big problem decoupling things that are
intertwined. Thanksgiving was for me always a special holiday (and not
just because my birthday happens to fall on it cyclically). The value
of Thanksgiving for me was always the family gathering. The food was
entirely secondary and unimportant to the event. Or more importantly, I
can tell you what family members attended the last several Thanksgiving
dinners, but I couldn't tell you what specifically we had for dinner.
People need to learn to decouple things and to find what they *really*
value (in this case, the family gathering not the turkey). Mindless
acceptance of tradition without asking the simple question "why are we
doing this" isn't something that unites anyone. It's either
sentimentalized nostalgia or preprogrammed behavior, and neither is
particularly appealing to me.
I'm not suggesting every family should go out to a restaurant for
Thanksgiving. What I am suggesting is that people take the time to
simply question "why are we doing this." And in asking that question,
ask if there is something you could be doing differently that makes the
holiday more meaningful and worthwhile to you.
Dick Margulis
John,
Perhaps I should have included a smiley. You are certainly welcome to
celebrate any holiday however you see fit. But I think you are missing
my point, which is that the ritual of preparing, consuming, and cleaning
up after a traditional turkey dinner is integral to the whole
Thanksgiving meme. It binds us to our neighbors as a nation, because we
are all secure in the knowledge that everyone else is doing exactly the
same thing we're doing, with maybe a little creative fillip around the
edges. At Christmas, perhaps you have seafood at midnight in your house
and feel connected to other traditional Italian-American families. (Or
maybe you don't, of course.) At Easter, your Greek Orthodox neighbors
may choose to have lamb so they can feel connected with the Greek
diaspora. Those are fine traditions, too. But Thanksgiving is the one
opportunity to feel completely connected to your Greek neighbors and
your German neighbors and your Polish neighbors and your Syrian
neighbors and your Ashkenazi neighbors and your Jehovah's Witness
neighbors and even your Tofurkey-eating Seventh Day Adventist neighbors
in one great American polity. It's not a bad thing. Really.
John Passaniti
> Perhaps I should have included a smiley. You are certainly welcome to
> celebrate any holiday however you see fit. But I think you are missing
> my point, which is that the ritual of preparing, consuming, and cleaning
> up after a traditional turkey dinner is integral to the whole
> Thanksgiving meme. It binds us to our neighbors as a nation, because we
> are all secure in the knowledge that everyone else is doing exactly the
> same thing we're doing, with maybe a little creative fillip around the
> edges.
Include whatever emoticon you like. It still saddens me that if you're
right, we live in a country that is so insecure about the outward
differences of their neighbors that we need meaningless rituals executed
exactly the same way to find common ground. What should be honored and
embraced are not the specific sentimentalized rituals you seem to think
are important, but the commonality found in what matters-- families
getting together and celebrating each other in *whatever* way makes
sense to them.
The map is not the territory. The flag is not the country. The
Thanksgiving dinner is not the turkey and rituals imposed on us by the
marketing departments of poultry farms. It's about family, and that's
where people who aren't caught up in symbology find their commonality.
> At Christmas, perhaps you have seafood at midnight in your house
> and feel connected to other traditional Italian-American families. (Or
> maybe you don't, of course.) At Easter, your Greek Orthodox neighbors
> may choose to have lamb so they can feel connected with the Greek
> diaspora. Those are fine traditions, too. But Thanksgiving is the one
> opportunity to feel completely connected to your Greek neighbors and
> your German neighbors and your Polish neighbors and your Syrian
> neighbors and your Ashkenazi neighbors and your Jehovah's Witness
> neighbors and even your Tofurkey-eating Seventh Day Adventist neighbors
> in one great American polity. It's not a bad thing. Really.
It's a horrible thing. Really. You've replaced the meaning with the
symbol, all in a cheap imitation of some sense of connectedness that
should come from the commonality of being with family, not following
some arbitrary ritual.
Gosh, the Grinch figured out that Christmas wasn't about having
Who-pudding, roast beast, and the last can of Who-hash. When will you
figure out that Thanksgiving likewise isn't about a set of rituals and a
maudlin Norman Rockwell painting from 1943.
Scaly Lizard
<marg...@comcast.net> wrote:
>Scaly Lizard wrote:
>>
>> Egglands Best advertises no hormones, don't they? That's worth
>> a bit extra to me.
>
>I dunno. What's the hormone load on eggs? I think the hormone-laced feed
>is used for broilers, not layers; so it may be that no laying flocks get
>hormones. Same question on antibiotics: IF the flocks are treated, what
>is the resulting load in the eggs? Just a question.
Don't know, but after reading accounts of hormone-fed
cows passing traces into their milk and some folks
having bad reactions, it's one more thing to avoid, i guess.
>>Helluva Good is pricey and worth it... but i have
>> to wait until it's on sale.
>It's okay. Take it or leave it. Cabot Extra Sharp, though. Mmmmmm.
Tried Cabot, and expected it to be better than it was,
given the advert hype. Good, but not stellar. Tastes
are /not/ a science, lol.
>Not a big fan of sage, but I love savory. Thanks for the tip. Maybe just
>a teensy bit of sage?
Skip it if you don't like it. Anyways, only a teensy bit of anything.
When spices get oiled up and heated up, the flavor expands.
>> I could never go out to a restaurant on Thanksgiving. Making
>> those poor people go to work to serve you on T-Day is
>> unconscionable. You don't get the family feast experience
>> at a restaurant: you know, one relative planted in front of a
>> football game, two more playing cards, various people in and
>> out of the kitchen constantly arguing about this or that stuffing
>> and kids putting olives on their fingers to scare the baby and
>> the always-rancorous debate over cranberries: lumpy or jello-y?
>
>There are rare occasions when it is good that you can get a Thanksgiving
>dinner in a restaurant, and for some people, it's really a lifesaver.
>But John's notion of just going to some random restaurant and eating
>something other than roast turkey is blasphemy. Thanksgiving is the
>Great American Holiday. No presents. No sectarianism. No church
>services. Everyone (except John) communing with the rest of the American
>polity in a homegrown ritual that is largely invariant across
>religiousl, ethnic, and racial groups. It is the single feature of our
>culture that does the most to unite us, with better participation (by
>far) than elections, military or voluntary service, churchgoing, or even
>Super Bowl watching. Shame on John!
I wouldn't go that far, heh, but the social involvement is
delightful when 10 - 20 people pull together all day to set
a laden table, then tear that bird up in an hour. Slapping
the hand of a young'un caught dipping a finger into the
whipped cream is fun, because the adults have memories
of getting caught doing just that, when they were that age.
>> I want answers: why can't we cook geese, and why
>> doesn't anyone ever make mincemeat anymore?
>No one makes mincemeat for a few reasons. In the lifetime of anyone
>reading this, mincemeat has been a fruit compote. There has been no meat
>involved, except in the name. This confuses people. It either leads
>people to wave their hands in disgust and say, "No thanks!" because they
>think it IS made of meat and they can't imagine how that could be good
>in a dessert pie; or it leaves them perplexed because they're not
>getting what they think they paid for. Another reason is that the flavor
>itself has an eighteenth century style to it--heavily pickled,
>overspiced, oversweet, overcooked, gunky little schnibbles--out of
>keeping with modern culinary sensibilitie. A relic of life before
>refrigeration. Another reason is that if you make it the traditional
>way, you need suet. Who wants to eat suet? It just SOUNDS
>disgusting--all that hard fat just clinging to your arteries before you
>even finish a piece of pie (never mind that this is an absurd, paranoid
>fantasy).
Lol, i'm gonna skip the suet. But you're exactly right i fear...
mincemeat has a flavor that's a throwback to the days of
gooseberry jam and hot cinnamon punch. But heck, the
sandwich is as old, and the omelet is centuries older still.
>Goose is another matter. We associate it with a British Christmas.
Yeah, Tiny Tim and all that.
>Turkey is the American Thanksgiving bird, to be sure (although the
>turkey we eat is native to Mexico and is quite different from the wild
>turkey the Pilgrims ate). But beyond that, we've gone from a nation with
>more domestic geese than people in 1890 to a nation where goose is a
>rare deviation from the normal holiday bird. As a consequence, we've
>forgotten (as a country) how to cook it (although one could argue that,
>under the present administration, our goose is being cooked, I suppose).
>A goose is not a small turkey. You have to deal with the fat. There are
>a few approaches. Probably the least successful is the Norman Rockwell
>vision of a golden roast bird lying on the table, ready to be carved.
>Makes for a good picture, not so much for good eating. If you want to
>cook a goose with the skin on, you need a high enough temperature to
>render out most of the fat during the roasting process, resulting in a
>quite dark and crispy skin. A second approach (theoretical, because I've
>never seen it done) is to skin the bird and roast it whole. The third
>approach, more of an Eastern European style, is to skin and joint the
>bird and lay the pieces on a thick bed of cabbage and onions or
>sauerkraut and onions and roast it. This results in a big platter of
>meat, but nothing to take a picture of in the middle of the groaning
>board. Thus it's not really associated with holidays.
I guess my question really was: the Canada Geese we have here
are hardly endangered anymore. Heck, some of them don't even
bother flying south anymore, what with year-round open water
and abundant food due to human intervention. I'd rather have
turkey on T-Day, but why can't i just walk up to one of today's
semi-tame geese and clunk it on the head and take it home?
If i hit one with the car (by accident of course...), do i have to
call the DEC and face possible charges, or can i just pop it in
the trunk?
Never ate a goose, but sure would like to try. I've heard of
the high fat content providing drippings that make the richest
gravy ever. I've also heard of reserving the goosefat and using
it for a cooking oil, which is supposed to make anything you
cook with it taste good. Remember when burger joints used
to take the grill grease and use that to fry the french fries?
Or when the oil used for this Friday's fish fry was used to
make the fries next Friday? Haven't had good fries since
the whole health craze made everyone go with veg oil.
SL
Scaly Lizard
Wow, that's sad.
Tradition is "imposed by the marketing departments"?
Communal meal prep is for saps who're "caught up in symbology"?
A national holiday observance is "a horrible thing", a "cheap
imitation" and a"meaningless" and "arbitrary ritual" ??
I can't imagine the high school traumas at the hands of
the 'popular kids' which have so thoroughly poisoned your
view of humanity, and American society in particular.
The rest of humanity actually enjoys tradition, as a link
to relatives now dead and as expression of communal
identity. Seems you've cut yourself off from so much
of what it's like to be human... so much so that you're
utterly free to be yourself, yet utterly alone in yourself.
Happy holidays to you anyways.
The Maya cut out the hearts of captives and played ball
games with their heads. We prepare a meal in memory
of the time when we peacefully coexisted with the Native
Americans. Ours is better.
The ancient Jews slaughtered sheep and used their blood as
household decoration to recall common hardships. We eat
squash and corn and beans and turkey to recall the gifts that
other cultures can open our eyes to. Ours is better.
The Tartars got drunk on fermented yaks' milk and played
polo with human heads, while we take 'turkey naps' near
a warm fire and doze off in the middle of a football game.
That's a far better tradition.
Point being: all societies have traditions and rituals. In 99.5%
of all other human cultures through history, you'd be killed for
not observing traditional rituals. We live in one of the few that
doesn't do that: we just pity the outcasts instead of killing them.
So you're not a het or a christian or a conservative or a
military rationalist. So what? But how can you be so
disconnected from the society you lurk about in, so much
as to disparage even the most harmless of traditions?
I'm not urging you to "get with it" and "conform", but i must
relate to you that /all/ the folks who were successful in
obliterating traditions have two things in common:
a) they commanded large armies and used genocide to wipe
out civilians.
b) they ended up creating new traditions, not on purpose, but
only because humans enjoy tradition, as a link to relatives now
dead and as an expression of communal identity.
You don't have a genocidal army, and you don't seem to have
any compelling tenet around which a new tradition might form.
You're not a dog barking up the wrong tree, you're simply a
dog barking at a tree which he has no chance of climbing.
Happy Holidays, and my Christmas wish for you is going to
be that you get over the "angry outcast" idiom and appreciate
people as they are, not as you'd like them to be.
SL
Dick Margulis
John,
What Scaly said. Plus this: We're hard-wired for ritual. Open up your
right brain to the rhythm and pageantry of it all. Doing so will
increase your oxytocin production and give you a sense of comfort and
wellbeing. You can get together with your family and enjoy their company
in any way, shape, or form you wish. That's great. But where's the love
for thy neighbor in that? Thanksgiving is the one day a year we set
aside to say, hey, we're all one big, happy family. Everyone is welcome
to be an American-for-a-day (just like on March 17 we can all be
Irish-for-a-day if we wish). This isn't about nation-states or any other
kind of divisive boundary. It's just a harvest festival, something that
predates nation-states by millenia, where we celebrate the bounty the
earth provides. And it is the cultural ritual of it (Ocean Spray jellied
cranberry sauce included, even if nobody actually likes the stuff) that
makes it work.
Your response is left-brain analytical, and it holds up as a debating
position. But it doesn't persuade me on an emotional level.
Dick
Dick Margulis
> On Tue, 22 Nov 2005 07:03:59 -0500, Dick Margulis
> <marg...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Scaly Lizard wrote:
>>
>>>Egglands Best advertises no hormones, don't they? That's worth
>>>a bit extra to me.
>>
>>I dunno. What's the hormone load on eggs? I think the hormone-laced feed
>>is used for broilers, not layers; so it may be that no laying flocks get
>>hormones. Same question on antibiotics: IF the flocks are treated, what
>>is the resulting load in the eggs? Just a question.
>
>
> Don't know, but after reading accounts of hormone-fed
> cows passing traces into their milk and some folks
> having bad reactions, it's one more thing to avoid, i guess.
Hey, Scaly, you usually do the research. Might be worth doing on this,
too. Those Eggland's Best are awfully expensive eggs. And if it turns
out there's really no difference, won't you feel silly paying for the
label? Now don't get me wrong. I like a fresh egg and will pay extra to
a local producer with a small outdoor flock and organic feed. But I
won't pay extra just for marketing hype.
>
>
>>>Helluva Good is pricey and worth it... but i have
>>>to wait until it's on sale.
>
>
>>It's okay. Take it or leave it. Cabot Extra Sharp, though. Mmmmmm.
>
>
> Tried Cabot, and expected it to be better than it was,
> given the advert hype. Good, but not stellar. Tastes
> are /not/ a science, lol.
>
Yeah, de gustibus non est disputandum. I only meant that I prefer Cabot
Extra Sharp to any others I've tried--and I've tried lots of fancy
cheddars and wash curd cheeses in my time, from England, Canada, New
York, Wisconsin, California, Oregon, probably some other states, and
Vermont. But all those other cheeses have their fans, too.
>
>>Not a big fan of sage, but I love savory. Thanks for the tip. Maybe just
>>a teensy bit of sage?
>
>
> Skip it if you don't like it. Anyways, only a teensy bit of anything.
> When spices get oiled up and heated up, the flavor expands.
>
Got it.
>
[snip]
>
>
>>>I want answers: why can't we cook geese, and why
>>>doesn't anyone ever make mincemeat anymore?
>
>
>>No one makes mincemeat for a few reasons. In the lifetime of anyone
>>reading this, mincemeat has been a fruit compote. There has been no meat
>>involved, except in the name. This confuses people. It either leads
>>people to wave their hands in disgust and say, "No thanks!" because they
>>think it IS made of meat and they can't imagine how that could be good
>>in a dessert pie; or it leaves them perplexed because they're not
>>getting what they think they paid for. Another reason is that the flavor
>>itself has an eighteenth century style to it--heavily pickled,
>>overspiced, oversweet, overcooked, gunky little schnibbles--out of
>>keeping with modern culinary sensibilitie. A relic of life before
>>refrigeration. Another reason is that if you make it the traditional
>>way, you need suet. Who wants to eat suet? It just SOUNDS
>>disgusting--all that hard fat just clinging to your arteries before you
>>even finish a piece of pie (never mind that this is an absurd, paranoid
>>fantasy).
>
>
> Lol, i'm gonna skip the suet. But you're exactly right i fear...
> mincemeat has a flavor that's a throwback to the days of
> gooseberry jam and hot cinnamon punch. But heck, the
> sandwich is as old, and the omelet is centuries older still.
Both sandwiches and omelets are fresh foods as opposed to preserved
foods (not saying you can't put salami into either, of course). And they
are forms, not recipes. I don't think the smoked turkey-asiago-chipotle
mayonnaise-with-mesclun-greens panino was on the Earl's menu.
And mincemeat is this BROWN glop of unidentifiable and indistinguishable
bits of...of what exactly? Of course it's mostly raisins and apples, but
that's not the sensation when you're eating it. Today's picky eaters (we
live in a narcissistic, infantilized age; people eat like
three-year-olds) won't go there.
[snip]
>
> I guess my question really was: the Canada Geese we have here
> are hardly endangered anymore.
They're also not domestic geese.
Heck, some of them don't even
> bother flying south anymore, what with year-round open water
> and abundant food due to human intervention. I'd rather have
> turkey on T-Day, but why can't i just walk up to one of today's
> semi-tame geese and clunk it on the head and take it home?
You can. However, if you're caught you'll wind up in court, with
unpleasant consequences. There's a season for shooting them in some
states, and only if they are airborne at the time; but I'm not aware of
a season for clubbing them.
>
> If i hit one with the car (by accident of course...), do i have to
> call the DEC and face possible charges, or can i just pop it in
> the trunk?
Pop it in the trunk, same as with a deer. You kill it, you own it.
Dispose of it as you wish.
>
> Never ate a goose, but sure would like to try. I've heard of
> the high fat content providing drippings that make the richest
> gravy ever. I've also heard of reserving the goosefat and using
> it for a cooking oil, which is supposed to make anything you
> cook with it taste good.
That ain't oil, buster. It's solid fat, much like leaf lard, but with a
different flavor, of course. It is traditionally used for potting
(sealing cooked foods against air, for storage at room temperature), as
an ingredient in salve to protect exposed skin in the winter, and for
frying (much as you would use bacon fat). People used to spread it on
bread instead of butter (had a neighbor who used lard that way--yuck!),
especially if butter wasn't on the menu, such as at a meat meal in a
kosher home.
And the rendered skin, tossed with a sprinkle of salt (ganse griebens
[sp???]) is a tasty treat.
I wasn't suggesting that the removed skin and fat should be tossed out
necessarily. It's just that if you roast a goose the way you would roast
a turkey, the meat itself becomes too greasy to be palatable. The meat
is rich enough and has enough fat within it, that you don't need the
extra from the skin, although you still need to baste.
Remember when burger joints used
> to take the grill grease and use that to fry the french fries?
No, I don't. But McD's switched from frying in beef fat to spraying a
beef-based flavoring on the frozen fries before frying them in vegetable
oil. So I know where you're coming from.
> Or when the oil used for this Friday's fish fry was used to
> make the fries next Friday?
Oh, that's gross.
Haven't had good fries since
> the whole health craze made everyone go with veg oil.
Yeah, you can use goose fat for that. In general, if you fry in hard
(highly saturated) fats, the food absorbs less total fat than if you fry
in light oils.
>
> SL
John Passaniti
> John,
>
> What Scaly said.
I don't know what he said, but given past conversation, I'm sure he
quoted me out of context and argued against a position I wasn't making.
> [...] You can get together with your family and enjoy their company
> in any way, shape, or form you wish. That's great. But where's the love
> for thy neighbor in that?
My love for my neighbor and the sense of connectedness I feel at
Thanksgiving has nothing to do with the rituals. It has everything to
do with what matters-- the gathering of the family.
I work with a guy who grew up in Russia and is now an American citizen.
I have absolutely no idea what family rituals he may have, and it
honestly doesn't matter to me. He might be bringing forward some
comforting tradition from where he grew up, he might go whole-hog for
the American Thanksgiving stereotype, or he might come up with some
interesting blending of the two. I have no idea, and it doesn't matter
in the least to me.
But what does matter is that I know he's getting his family together, in
one place, and they're probably going to have a good time. And I can
relate to *that*. *That* is the point of commonality we share at
Thanksgiving.
> Thanksgiving is the one day a year we set
> aside to say, hey, we're all one big, happy family.
Yes, exactly! And that's Thanksgiving has always been one of my
favorite holidays. But notice what is important there-- the gathering
of the family.
> Your response is left-brain analytical, and it holds up as a debating
> position. But it doesn't persuade me on an emotional level.
Funny, since my statements are *entirely* about emotion. The
Thanksgiving celebrations I remember most in my life all have everything
to do with family. There was the year after my father remarried and my
stepmother welcomed my brother and I into their family. There was the
year I was able to incorporate my partner into my extended family.
There was the year after that his family invited me to their
Thanksgiving celebration. There was the first Thanksgiving after my
grandmother died that I realized how much I really missed her.
For each of those Thanksgivings, I couldn't tell you what combination of
food and rituals were at any of those Thanksgiving dinners-- it's
completely irrelevant. That all fades from memory. What doesn't fade
are the emotions of being with (and sometimes without) family.
The only thing "left-brain" about my statements is that I wish people
would learn to dive deeper into the rituals they mindlessly accept,
deconstruct them, and understand what about those rituals actually
matters to them. When you do that, you are able to separate out the
signal from the noise, and you end up appreciating it more. The noise
of Thanksgiving are the rituals; the signal is the family gathering.
If you (or others) can't see that, then I'm saddened because the true
meaning and worth of a holiday is lost on you.
Dick Margulis
Happy Thanksgiving, John, however you want to celebrate it.
Hardcore Icon
"above" everyone else.
Either above their way of thinking, above their traditions, or above
something else. Seems to be a common theme.
Then he ends up looking down on everyone else and feeling sorry for
them......
Maybe he hasn't ever fit in for his entire life so it's easier to pretend
that he's a "great thinker" who is "above everyone elses traditions"??
It just seems strange for someone to constantly put everyone else below
himself in some hope that it will raise him up. It's weird.
It's Thanksgiving. Cook a turkey, all the trimmings, and have a great meal
like the rest of us. It's great, it's fun, and you don't have to worry
about doing something weird just to make yourself feel special!
Icon
"Scaly Lizard" <scaly...@nospampleaseyho.com> wrote in message
news:5348o1dkhucpl79s1...@4ax.com...
Hardcore Icon
We are just not really weird like you.
Us common people just like to have a good time on Thanksgiving. We don't
really like to analyze why - that's what you like!
We just like to have a good *normal* Thanksgiving (with everyone's own
twists, of course) and not spend all our time trying to convince others that
we are somehow better because we are weird.
So don't be sad. You seem to have a hard enough time with just being weird.
Being sad and weird would be too much to ask - especially on a holiday!
Seriously though, the point is that you don't have to convince anyone that
you are something special or that you are somehow above them. There is a
time for that, certainly - but it's just Thanksgiving now. Take it easy,
*TRY* to be a little normal (it won't hurt, won't make you dumber, and you
might actually enjoy yourself!), and have a good time.
That's what it's all about!
Icon
"John Passaniti" <nn...@JapanIsShinto.com> wrote in message
news:hJ1hf.14198$cg....@news02.roc.ny...
Hardcore Icon
meat......
Icon
"Scaly Lizard" <scaly...@nospampleaseyho.com> wrote in message
news:i0v7o1d9jduj7gq08...@4ax.com...
Dick Margulis
> Never ate a goose, but heresay is that they are kind of fatty and oily
> meat......
>
> Icon
Can be if not cooked properly. It's a rich meat in any case--as in
richly flavored--none of that candyass tastes-like-chicken stuff. It's
all dark meat, and while it isn't tough, you do need to actually use a
few of your teeth on it before swallowing. But it doesn't have to be
fatty or oily, especially if cooked and served with--hey, Hardcore, this
is for you--cabbage or kraut.
Hardcore Icon
popular these days?..... it's always fun to serve people venison, telling
them it's hamburger.... then tell them that it's deer meat after they've
eaten it. Some people actually almost throw up! But the venison is
actually much leaner than beef..... people these days don't like the "wild"
taste of REAL food.
That goose sounds like it would be a hell of a meal....
Served with the kraut, of course!
Happy Thanksgiving,
Icon
"Dick Margulis" <marg...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:11o9t60...@news.supernews.com...
John Passaniti
> Happy Thanksgiving, John, however you want to celebrate it.
Thanks. My only fear is that people joining in late to this
conversation might think your reply has something to do with the subject
line. For the record, I don't expect any turkey fucking this holiday.
Dick Margulis
Too old for that stuff anymore? ;-)
Dick Margulis
> Sounds like more of a "wild" type meat.
Somewhat. But domestic geese are fattened on grain, so it's not really a
gamey taste (the sort you have to soak out in three changes of water);
it's just very flavorful.
Maybe that's why it's not as
> popular these days?.....
Possible. Maybe it's the economics, which pushes the price up relative
to chicken and turkey. Maybe it's the smaller nuclear families, where
even if you're going to have a family dinner after church every Sunday
(and how many people do that anymore?), you don't need that big a bird.
In 1890 there were more domestic geese than people in the US, mostly
consumed on the farm, of course. But chickens in those days only laid
30-odd eggs a year.
it's always fun to serve people venison, telling
> them it's hamburger.... then tell them that it's deer meat after they've
> eaten it. Some people actually almost throw up! But the venison is
> actually much leaner than beef..... people these days don't like the "wild"
> taste of REAL food.
When I lived in the Hudson Valley area, I worked in a butcher shop in
Kingston where hunters would sometimes bring in a carcass to be
butchered. The place to hunt was Hurley. Wooded hills dropped down to a
narrow valley with six feet of topsoil, where sweet corn for the New
York City market was grown year after year. The deer would fatten on the
corn, and the caracasses that came in had three-quarters of an inch of
fat on the outside and good marbling on the interior.
But I know what you mean about the Bambi effect. Try to get a kid to eat
rabbit some time ;-)
>
> That goose sounds like it would be a hell of a meal....
>
> Served with the kraut, of course!
>
> Happy Thanksgiving,
>
> Icon
>
Same to you.
vrooooom
EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
No cabbage or (yuch) kraut!
I lived in Phelps and I hated it ever since...
Now some wild onions and rice to go with it is awesome.'Tasty
Hardcore Icon
You get a pass on it then!
Happy Thanksgiving,
Icon
"vrooooom" <vroo...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:Zdbhf.2960$aA2....@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...
Scaly Lizard
<marg...@comcast.net> wrote:
>Scaly Lizard wrote:
>> On Tue, 22 Nov 2005 07:03:59 -0500, Dick Margulis
>> <marg...@comcast.net> wrote:
>>>Scaly Lizard wrote:
>>>
>>>>Egglands Best advertises no hormones, don't they? That's worth
>>>>a bit extra to me.
>>>
>> Don't know...
>
>Hey, Scaly, you usually do the research. Might be worth doing on this,
>too. Those Eggland's Best are awfully expensive eggs. And if it turns
>out there's really no difference, won't you feel silly paying for the
>label? Now don't get me wrong. I like a fresh egg and will pay extra to
>a local producer with a small outdoor flock and organic feed. But I
>won't pay extra just for marketing hype.
Very Lol! Last night i said to myself that i should look into
that egg-hormone thing and find out if i'm concerned over
a trifle or not. I'll get to it because i'm curious, but the last
two days have had me painting the folks' kitchen before
and after work. I can't herd sheep, but damn if i'm not a
wizard with blue tape!
>> Tried Cabot, and expected it to be better than it was,
>> given the advert hype. Good, but not stellar. Tastes
>> are /not/ a science, lol.
>Yeah, de gustibus non est disputandum. I only meant that I prefer Cabot
>Extra Sharp to any others I've tried--and I've tried lots of fancy
>cheddars and wash curd cheeses in my time, from England, Canada, New
>York, Wisconsin, California, Oregon, probably some other states, and
>Vermont. But all those other cheeses have their fans, too.
As luck would have it, i have 3 different brands of extra-sharp
in the fridge right now: Helluva Good, Kraft's Cracker Barrel and
a local grocery's house wrapper. I'll pick up a block of Cabots
this weekend and do a scientific taste test (oxymoron alert!).
>>>>I want answers: ... why doesn't anyone ever make mincemeat anymore?
>>
>>>No one makes mincemeat for a few reasons. In the lifetime of anyone
>>>reading this, mincemeat has been a fruit compote. There has been no meat
>>>involved, except in the name. This confuses people. It either leads
>>>people to wave their hands in disgust and say, "No thanks!" because they
>>>think it IS made of meat and they can't imagine how that could be good
>>>in a dessert pie; or it leaves them perplexed because they're not
>>>getting what they think they paid for. Another reason is that the flavor
>>>itself has an eighteenth century style to it--heavily pickled,
>>>overspiced, oversweet, overcooked, gunky little schnibbles--out of
>>>keeping with modern culinary sensibilitie. A relic of life before
>>>refrigeration. Another reason is that if you make it the traditional
>>>way, you need suet. Who wants to eat suet? It just SOUNDS
>>>disgusting--all that hard fat just clinging to your arteries before you
>>>even finish a piece of pie (never mind that this is an absurd, paranoid
>>>fantasy).
>>
>> Lol, i'm gonna skip the suet. But you're exactly right i fear...
>> mincemeat has a flavor that's a throwback to the days of
>> gooseberry jam and hot cinnamon punch. ...
...
>And mincemeat is this BROWN glop of unidentifiable and indistinguishable
>bits of...of what exactly? Of course it's mostly raisins and apples, but
>that's not the sensation when you're eating it. Today's picky eaters (we
>live in a narcissistic, infantilized age; people eat like
>three-year-olds) won't go there.
Tell me about it. When i made cherry pie out of freshly picked
fruit it was friggin' delicious, but some wouldn't eat it because it
wasn't fire-engine red. Nutty.
As for this T-Day's pies, the custard on oreo crust just went in
the fridge to chill, and the mince(meat) filling is done cooking
and cooling before filling and sealing. Gotta make an eggwash
and bake it, and then i'm set for bed.
I can't describe how good the house smells right now.
Went without the beef or suet or bourbon, to accommodate
healthers and AAers. Substituted butter for the suet, apple
juice for the bourbon and dried cherries and cranberries for
the beef. Holy snit, it smells good. If it tastes as fantastic
tomorrow as it smells tonight, i'll put the recipe up here.
Some of my reading turned up the 'real' way to make mincemeat,
which involves beef and no refrigeration for weeks. You put the
mincemeat in a sealed crock somewhere cool and add some
brandy every week or so. Trusting in the power of spices and
alcohol to preserve meat sounds dicey to our sensibilities, but
that's how they did it for centuries before the refrigerator (and
centuries before the icebox too!).
You have to let it stew for 3 weeks at least, or more if possible.
I've got rooms draped off without heat now, and Christmas is
four weeks away... i think i'm gonna try it.
>[snip]
>> I guess my question really was: the Canada Geese we have here
>> are hardly endangered anymore.
>
>They're also not domestic geese.
>
>> Heck, some of them don't even
>> bother flying south anymore, what with year-round open water
>> and abundant food due to human intervention. I'd rather have
>> turkey on T-Day, but why can't i just walk up to one of today's
>> semi-tame geese and clunk it on the head and take it home?
>
>You can. However, if you're caught you'll wind up in court, with
>unpleasant consequences. There's a season for shooting them in some
>states, and only if they are airborne at the time; but I'm not aware of
>a season for clubbing them.
Same difference, only my way doesn't leave you picking
shot out. If a hunter does shoots one for sport and doesn't
eat it, aren't i in the right if i take a 2-wood to one with full
intention of eating it?
>> If i hit one with the car (by accident of course...), do i have to
>> call the DEC and face possible charges, or can i just pop it in
>> the trunk?
>
>Pop it in the trunk, same as with a deer. You kill it, you own it.
>Dispose of it as you wish.
Awesome. I'm putting a Hefty bag in the trunk tomorrow. So
what was the legal definition of 'roadway' again? Is 10 feet
off the road still considered the 'shoulder' ?
>> Never ate a goose, but sure would like to try. I've heard of
>> the high fat content providing drippings that make the richest
>> gravy ever. I've also heard of reserving the goosefat and using
>> it for a cooking oil, which is supposed to make anything you
>> cook with it taste good.
>
>That ain't oil, buster. It's solid fat, much like leaf lard, but with a
>different flavor, of course. It is traditionally used for potting
>(sealing cooked foods against air, for storage at room temperature), as
>an ingredient in salve to protect exposed skin in the winter, and for
>frying (much as you would use bacon fat). People used to spread it on
>bread instead of butter (had a neighbor who used lard that way--yuck!),
>especially if butter wasn't on the menu, such as at a meat meal in a
>kosher home.
>
>And the rendered skin, tossed with a sprinkle of salt (ganse griebens
>[sp???]) is a tasty treat.
Goose Rinds? Heck, i'll eat anything once. The old folks in
my family tell of the War, when you couldn't get butter. The
substitiute was a pound-block of lard that came with a packet
of salt and yellow food coloring. You mixed it up and could at
least have something to spread on toast. They called it "oleo",
and some people still use that word for margarine.
>I wasn't suggesting that the removed skin and fat should be tossed out
>necessarily. It's just that if you roast a goose the way you would roast
>a turkey, the meat itself becomes too greasy to be palatable. The meat
>is rich enough and has enough fat within it, that you don't need the
>extra from the skin, although you still need to baste.
Thanks for the tip! I would imagine that if you skin it, then
the outer part of the meat would fry out pretty quick, so i'll
remember to baste early and often.
>> Remember when burger joints used
>> to take the grill grease and use that to fry the french fries?
>
>No, I don't. But McD's switched from frying in beef fat to spraying a
>beef-based flavoring on the frozen fries before frying them in vegetable
>oil. So I know where you're coming from.
Eww.
>> Or when the oil used for this Friday's fish fry was used to
>> make the fries next Friday?
>
>Oh, that's gross.
It's delish! French fries with a fishy taste are only good when
eaten with a fish fry, otherwise they're hard to justify.
> Haven't had good fries since
>> the whole health craze made everyone go with veg oil.
>
>Yeah, you can use goose fat for that. In general, if you fry in hard
>(highly saturated) fats, the food absorbs less total fat than if you fry
>in light oils.
Yeah, i'd heard that. The oils that today's nutritionistas consider
naughty are good for more fryings (if strained properly) and total
fat intake is lower per serving. But they counter by saying that
lower levels of 'bad fats' are worse than higher amounts of 'good
fats'.
Heck, i gave up on all that when they announced that bread
causes cancer.
OK, the mince pies are halfway through baking now, and i think
i have to bring a chair into the kitchen and breathe deeply for a
while, so please excuse me,
SL
Scaly Lizard
<hc_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Never ate a goose, but heresay is that they are kind of fatty and oily
>meat......
>
>Icon
What Dick said. Plus this: Duck is fatty yet delicious, and cheap
stew beef is fatty and oily but the fat makes the soup tastier. Bacon
is hell for healthers, but making home fries and eggs in the same pan
that just cooked some bacon is heavenly.
Every fat in moderation. Work plenty of fruits and veggies into your
eats, and you'll never fear fat. In fact, our metabolism is designed
to use animal fat for building body tissues. Vegans seem nutty to
me, and they all seem kinda pale. We're born as omnivores and
screwing with that setup seems like it'll lead to trouble down the
road.
SL
Dick Margulis
[big snip]
> Some of my reading turned up the 'real' way to make mincemeat,
> which involves beef and no refrigeration for weeks. You put the
> mincemeat in a sealed crock somewhere cool and add some
> brandy every week or so. Trusting in the power of spices and
> alcohol to preserve meat sounds dicey to our sensibilities, but
> that's how they did it for centuries before the refrigerator (and
> centuries before the icebox too!).
>
> You have to let it stew for 3 weeks at least, or more if possible.
> I've got rooms draped off without heat now, and Christmas is
> four weeks away... i think i'm gonna try it.
>
Plenty of meat is still eaten raw/cured, often with wine. Certain types
of salami, jerky, jaegerwurst, prosciutto/bauerschinken, ...
As for that sealed crock, I wouldn't be surprised if some of those old
recipes talk about sealing the crock with fat (beef or goose, take your
pick). Mmmm...anaerobic fermentation <g>
[more snipping]
>
> Yeah, i'd heard that. The oils that today's nutritionistas consider
> naughty are good for more fryings (if strained properly) and total
> fat intake is lower per serving. But they counter by saying that
> lower levels of 'bad fats' are worse than higher amounts of 'good
> fats'.
Lipitor to the rescue.
>
> Heck, i gave up on all that when they announced that bread
> causes cancer.
The leading cause of death is birth.
>
> OK, the mince pies are halfway through baking now, and i think
> i have to bring a chair into the kitchen and breathe deeply for a
> while, so please excuse me,
You're excused. Happy Thanksgiving.
Scaly Lizard
wrote:
>Hardcore Icon wrote:
>> "Dick Margulis" <marg...@comcast.net> wrote in message
>> news:11o9t60...@news.supernews.com...
>>>Hardcore Icon wrote:
<snipt>
>EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
>No cabbage or (yuch) kraut!
>I lived in Phelps and I hated it ever since...
>
>Now some wild onions and rice to go with it is awesome.'Tasty
Fascinating...
I wonder how that sense memory thing works. My
grandparents had an oil well in the back yard, and
to this day i love the smell of oil. Grew up in a family
that had liver and onions on Thursdays, but still gakk
at liver. I can fry liverwurst and blood sausage all day,
but still can't choke down liver.
So many mysteries, so little time.
SL
Dick Margulis
I don't think Hardcore's comment was directed at health consequences. I
think he was talking about mouthfeel. He doesn't strike me as the kind
of guy who pays much attention to fat from a nutritional perspective ;-)
Scaly Lizard
<marg...@comcast.net> wrote:
>Scaly Lizard wrote:
>
>[big snip]
>
>> Some of my reading turned up the 'real' way to make mincemeat,
>> which involves beef and no refrigeration for weeks. You put the
>> mincemeat in a sealed crock somewhere cool and add some
>> brandy every week or so. Trusting in the power of spices and
>> alcohol to preserve meat sounds dicey to our sensibilities, but
>> that's how they did it for centuries before the refrigerator (and
>> centuries before the icebox too!). You have to let it stew for 3
>> weeks at least, or more if possible. I've got rooms draped off
>> without heat now, and Christmas is four weeks away...
>> i think i'm gonna try it.
>Plenty of meat is still eaten raw/cured, often with wine. Certain types
>of salami, jerky, jaegerwurst, prosciutto/bauerschinken, ...
>As for that sealed crock, I wouldn't be surprised if some of those old
>recipes talk about sealing the crock with fat (beef or goose, take your
>pick). Mmmm...anaerobic fermentation <g>
Heh, there's sugars, but no yeast in there. Wonder what that
produces? No alcohol without yeast. Sounds scary, but i have
to try it. The old-time recipes mention a tightly-sealed crock, so
i guess i'll have to run down a goose soon to seal the jar ...errr...
i'll have to find goosefat at Wegmans. That's what i meant to say ;-)
>[more snipping]
>> Yeah, i'd heard that. The oils that today's nutritionistas consider
>> naughty are good for more fryings (if strained properly) and total
>> fat intake is lower per serving. But they counter by saying that
>> lower levels of 'bad fats' are worse than higher amounts of 'good
>> fats'.
>
>Lipitor to the rescue.
That's gross. Reminds me of the ancient Roman response
to excess: the vomitorium. Why take drugs to lower cholesterol
when the answer is much simpler and more healthily effective?
Eat grains, veggies, fruits and meats but make sure to stimulate
the liver with alcohol, because the liver is where excess fats are
zipped up in protein cocoons for easy transport to the bladder.
And stimulate the guts with ginger, mint and garlic to make every
last thing is digestible and either makes it through the tract lining
or can be dealt with at the other end.
>> Heck, i gave up on all that when they announced that bread
>> causes cancer.
>
>The leading cause of death is birth.
I thought it was retirement.
>> OK, the mince pies are halfway through baking now, and i think
>> i have to bring a chair into the kitchen and breathe deeply for a
>> while, so please excuse me,
>
>You're excused. Happy Thanksgiving.
Same to you and yours, and since the pies just finished a half
hour cooling on the windowsill, my work is officially done.
SL
Dick Margulis
>
> Heh, there's sugars, but no yeast in there. Wonder what that
> produces? No alcohol without yeast.
What makes you think there's no yeast in there? Anyway, I may have used
the word fermentation a bit loosely. Something's going on in there, anyway.
>>Lipitor to the rescue.
>
>
> That's gross. Reminds me of the ancient Roman response
> to excess: the vomitorium. Why take drugs to lower cholesterol
> when the answer is much simpler and more healthily effective?
> Eat grains, veggies, fruits and meats but make sure to stimulate
> the liver with alcohol, because the liver is where excess fats are
> zipped up in protein cocoons for easy transport to the bladder.
> And stimulate the guts with ginger, mint and garlic to make every
> last thing is digestible and either makes it through the tract lining
> or can be dealt with at the other end.
Oh I do all that. But there's an aspect of lipid metabolism that's
mediated by genetics and that kicks in with increasing age and weight.
One little pill a day brings it back down to where the doctor wants it
without my having to lose 100 pounds; who am I to complain?
Scaly Lizard
Heh, no i guess not. I was raised on corned beef, so my gag reflex
is not triggered by slippery meat. I even like Spam. Still having a
hard time visualizing sauerkraut with poultry though. Goes great
with pig and cow, but with birds? I can taste chicken and dumplings
possibly with 'kraut, but turkey and goose?
As a side note, i went many years just enjoying cranberry sauce
on it's own as a side dish, but a few years ago i was taught what
it's really for. That cranberry jello that comes in a can is meant to
be heated and poured over sliced turkey as a sauce. Sounds
incongruous, but so does lamb and mint jelly until you taste it.
Try it this year. Works well on the drier white meat.
Wasn't until i learned about cranberry sauce's hidden charms
that i appreciated the lumpy variety, which is even better as
a lone sauce on sliced turkey. Heck, after that i even tried it
on mashed potatoes and it was excellent in lieu of gravy or butter.
SL
Scaly Lizard
<marg...@comcast.net> wrote:
>Scaly Lizard wrote:
>> Heh, there's sugars, but no yeast in there. Wonder what that
>> produces? No alcohol without yeast.
>
>What makes you think there's no yeast in there? Anyway, I may have used
>the word fermentation a bit loosely. Something's going on in there, anyway.
What're you doing up at this hour? That turkey nap
will hit you like a ton of bricks at 6 PM, LOL. I've gotta
get some sleep so i can whup the nephews at poker
after dinner, just like every year, hee hee.
According to the instructions i was reading, the weeks
in cool storage allow the nuts and dried fruits to absorb
alcohol and meat fats, making the whole mixture sound
like a tangy fruit suet. I've salted fresh meat for storage,
but it'll be fun to try preserving beef with only spices and
whiskey. Of course, i'll try it on myself first and leave a
note stating that if they find me dead, then they should
deliver the pies they find in the fridge to the ME, and not
serve them at my wake.
>>>Lipitor to the rescue.
>>
>> That's gross. Reminds me of the ancient Roman response
>> to excess: the vomitorium. Why take drugs to lower cholesterol
>> when the answer is much simpler and more healthily effective?
>> Eat grains, veggies, fruits and meats but make sure to stimulate
>> the liver with alcohol, because the liver is where excess fats are
>> zipped up in protein cocoons for easy transport to the bladder.
>> And stimulate the guts with ginger, mint and garlic to make every
>> last thing is digestible and either makes it through the tract lining
>> or can be dealt with at the other end.
>
>Oh I do all that. But there's an aspect of lipid metabolism that's
>mediated by genetics and that kicks in with increasing age and weight.
>One little pill a day brings it back down to where the doctor wants it
>without my having to lose 100 pounds; who am I to complain?
Ahh, sorry but i'm sometimes callous to those concerns. I
keep forgetting that i have extremely fortunate genes, but not
everyone else does. I eat some despicable food but have
ridiculously low HDL levels. I have a busy and stressful life,
but have a blood pressure level that's almost dangerousy low.
It's probably genetic, but i like to think that reasonable alcohol
intake provides my body with the anti-oxidants that kill off
free radicals and my veggie intake scrubs out the rest of the
baddies in the meat and grains i eat. Of course, meat's expensive
and i'm dirt-poor, so perhaps it's my low meat intake that's doing
me favors. Who knows?
But if you have an extra 100 pounds, i have to advise shedding
them. You'll feel great if you do, and your bod will work better.
SL
Hardcore Icon
Typical lunch is a Krony's Steak Sub with cheese (fat), and bacon (fat),
then dinner is a pizza with pepperoni (fat), and bacon (fat). Then there is
chicken wings..... and garlic bread soaked in butter and cheese.......
Did you say something about moderation??
Seriously though, you are totally correct. Last physical was in July (with
blood work) and that diet wasn't actually too bad. Cholesterol level was
actually ok (the upper part of what is considered ok, but not elevated)...
doctor said to do better so basicly that means a few apples and banannas a
week and just a little less bacon on the subs! Keep in mind this is from a
person who has a VERY physical job and this diet will NOT work for
everyone!!
Icon
"Scaly Lizard" <scaly...@nospampleaseyho.com> wrote in message
news:944bo1d0665bfaqmn...@4ax.com...
Hardcore Icon
The Icon was talking about mouthfeel/taste. Just talking about the greasy
type of meat that the goose was rumored to be!
Scaly brings up some decent info as well though, but Hardcore goes on taste
first!
Be cool,
Icon
"Dick Margulis" <marg...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:11ob5ma...@news.supernews.com...
Hardcore Icon
Ham, Spam, Bacon, Sausage.... all from that wonderfull meat machine that we
call a pig! Yea!
Icon
"Scaly Lizard" <scaly...@nospampleaseyho.com> wrote in message
news:ld7bo15bejj4lj0dj...@4ax.com...
Hardcore Icon
great shape especially considering the diet!
Chalk that up to lots of hard work really... and definetly genetics too.
They help. But the hard work is really the most important. There's not an
ounce of fat on ol' Hardcore!
Sometimes it's hard to remember that not everyone is like that - and it's
not always their fault either. Oh well.
Happy Thanksgiving to all,
Icon
John Passaniti
>> Thanks. My only fear is that people joining in late to this
>> conversation might think your reply has something to do with the
>> subject line. For the record, I don't expect any turkey fucking
>> this holiday.
>
> Too old for that stuff anymore? ;-)
Nah-- although I just turned 41 today. The mind is willing, but the
flesh... well, it's not weak, but that damn refractory period seems to
be getting longer.
Besides, I prefer ham.
newsgr...@gmail.com
John Passaniti wrote:
> > I went out and got a nice Butterball turkey this afternoon in
> > preparation for the big day. [...]
>
> That was your first mistake. You live in a time when you can have
> nearly *anything* that you would want to eat delivered to your local
> stores or your own home. So why would you want boring turkey?
>
> Mindless traditional kills. Explore the edges-- life is far more
> interesting there.
Give me a freakin' break! There is a big difference between "mindless
tradition" and the rituals that help hold a society together.
The truly secure person is the one who really doesn't need to "prove"
that he is all about being a "free thinker" and the like,. He is not
like those who are essentially conformists because they *always* do
what they perceive as being what others are NOT doing. He is also not
like those who label their own preferences as "enlightened," while
belittling the preferences of others as "mindless traditions."
In other words, the truly secure person will do the "traditional"
Thanksgiving thing if that's what he likes. Many people find comfort
in it. Is there anything so wrong with that?
Traditionally, we go to Chicago for Thanksgiving and have the
traditional dinner and traditional football game viewing and
traditional young folks rolling on the little cabin floor at an aunt's
house. It follows the same traditional pattern year in and year out.
People get married and bring new folks into the fold, new babies are
born, and sometimes people even die, but it's still essentially the
same tradition from year to year. [note: emphasis on tradition]
The day after, most of the ladies in the family go shopping. I would
never shop at home, alone, on the day after Thanksgiving, but I go for
the company and because it has gotten to be, um, a tradition! We hit
some Chicago area mall, usually separate into small groups or go solo,
bump into each other once in a while, then meet up for lunch and
discuss our purchases. Most years I don't purchase anything at all --
I spend the time in unharried browsing and people watching. Then we go
back to the aunt's house again and eat leftovers from the day before.
And, guess what? It's a BLAST! It's one of the highlights of my year
every year!
(I had to cancel my Thanksgiving plans this year due to becoming very
ill last week. Just as a few times in the past when, for one reason or
another, we could not go to Chicago for Thanksgiving, I will miss the
traditional celebration there!)
> My favorite Thanksgiving dinners have always been when the family has
> gone out to a restaurant. No preparation, and everyone is free to order
> what they want. Then we can go home, and not have to clean anything.
Wait a minute, you're saying you have your own favorite family
traditions? Glad to hear it!
So why do you feel you have to look down your nose at the traditions
that others enjoy? That's so, how shall I put it,? Ethnocentric?
Non-tolerant? Small-minded?
-KD
newsgr...@gmail.com
Dick Margulis wrote:
> Perhaps I should have included a smiley. You are certainly welcome to
> celebrate any holiday however you see fit. But I think you are missing
> my point, which is that the ritual of preparing, consuming, and cleaning
> up after a traditional turkey dinner is integral to the whole
> Thanksgiving meme. It binds us to our neighbors as a nation, because we
> are all secure in the knowledge that everyone else is doing exactly the
> same thing we're doing, with maybe a little creative fillip around the
> edges. At Christmas, perhaps you have seafood at midnight in your house
> and feel connected to other traditional Italian-American families. (Or
> maybe you don't, of course.) At Easter, your Greek Orthodox neighbors
> may choose to have lamb so they can feel connected with the Greek
> diaspora. Those are fine traditions, too. But Thanksgiving is the one
> opportunity to feel completely connected to your Greek neighbors and
> your German neighbors and your Polish neighbors and your Syrian
> neighbors and your Ashkenazi neighbors and your Jehovah's Witness
> neighbors and even your Tofurkey-eating Seventh Day Adventist neighbors
> in one great American polity. It's not a bad thing. Really.
Well said, Dick. As I sit here, NOT doing all the traditional things
myself, due to recovering from being ill, I am still aware that others
are doing them around me. In Chicago, where my husband and I normally
are and where are children are, they *are* doing those things. Because
I have done those things with them for so many years, I can imagine
what they're doing.
I can reflect back to the fifties and sixties, when I was a kid, and my
grandmother would always have Thanksgiving with us. Although those
celebrations were smaller, quieter, and my dad (who did the cooking, my
mother being unable) was not the cook that my husband's aunt is, it was
*our* version of Thanksgiving. Ah, yes, I recall so well the jellied
cranberry outta the can, frozen squash (we kids HATED it), mashed
potatoes, and mince meat pie (for Gramma - we wouldn't touch that
either). There never was enough dressing!
Then we lost Gramma my senior year. That year and the one before it
pretty much sucked all around, so I'm not sure we even *had*
Thanksgiving that year. Which, come to think of it, makes me wonder if
rituals aren't at least partially tangible proof that things are going
well. When things aren't, it's hard to pull it together to make those
rituals happen.
Anyway, the near year, when I was a freshman in college, a classmate
from Queens invited me to come home with him for Thanksgiving and I
accepted. Being 18, I didn't realize that it would hurt my dad as much
as it did. My sister later told me the look of disappointment on his
face when I called to tell him I wouldn't be coming home. Now, of
course, I understand -- it was the first Thanksgiving that I, his
eldest child, had not been there. To him, I'm sure it marked the end
of an era.
A few years later when I was living in an apartment on Norton Street ,
I planned to join my parents and sisters in Irondequoit for the meal.
Early in the day, as I was preparing my contribution, to the meal,
squash casserole, I began feeling a bit queasy. By the time I got to
my parents' house, it was worse. My sister ended up calling a friend
to take me to Northside ER.
All those memories, and more, are with me today. "Mindless" tradition?
Banality? Sorry, these are some of the things that make life worth
living.
-KD
Hardcore Icon
Happy Thanksgiving to you!
Icon
<newsgr...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1132861194.2...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
newsgr...@gmail.com
when one is typing)
*our* version of Thanksgiving. Ah, yes, I recall, so well, the jellied
cranberry outta the can, frozen squash (we kids HATED it), mashed
potatoes, and mince meat pie (for Gramma - we wouldn't touch that
either). There never was enough dressing!
Then we lost Gramma my senior year. That year and the one before it
pretty much sucked all around, so I'm not sure we even *had*
Thanksgiving that year. Which, come to think of it, makes me wonder if
rituals aren't, at least partially, tangible proof that things are
going
well. When things aren't, it's hard to pull it together to make those
rituals happen.
Anyway, the next year, when I was a freshman in college, a classmate
from Queens invited me to come home with him for Thanksgiving and I
accepted. Being 18, I didn't realize that it would hurt my dad as much
as it did. My sister later told me of the look of disappointment on
his
face when I called to tell him I wouldn't be coming home. Now, of
course, I understand -- it was the first Thanksgiving that I, his
eldest child, had not been there. To him, I'm sure it marked the end
of an era.
A few years later when I was living in an apartment on Norton Street ,
I planned to join my parents and sisters in Irondequoit for the meal.
Early in the day, as I was preparing my contribution to the meal,
newsgr...@gmail.com
errors that I wish weren't there.
Cut me some slack, OK -- I have been sick as a dog the past week.
-KD
John Passaniti
> Give me a freakin' break! There is a big difference between "mindless
> tradition" and the rituals that help hold a society together.
American society is so fragile that knowing your neighbors don't engage
in the same rituals means it will fly apart at the seams? If so, then
something is *seriously* wrong with America. Thankfully, you're dead wrong.
> The truly secure person is the one who really doesn't need to "prove"
> that he is all about being a "free thinker" and the like,. He is not
> like those who are essentially conformists because they *always* do
> what they perceive as being what others are NOT doing. He is also not
> like those who label their own preferences as "enlightened," while
> belittling the preferences of others as "mindless traditions."
This isn't about being a reflexive non-conformist. If that was the
case, then I wouldn't bother with Thanksgiving at all. I value
Thanksgiving as a holiday greatly-- it's one of the few holidays I
celebrate. And I asked myself, what is the core of this holiday-- what
is it that I find value in? What is it that I'm looking forward to?
The answer to anyone who is serious about the question can be summed up
in one word-- family.
> In other words, the truly secure person will do the "traditional"
> Thanksgiving thing if that's what he likes. Many people find comfort
> in it. Is there anything so wrong with that?
If someone honestly finds comfort in a particular set of rituals, no, of
course there isn't a problem. But that's not what Dick was talking
about. His defense of the traditions centered around the idea that
Thanksgiving's value was primarily in everyone doing the same thing and
finding commonality in that.
And that specifically is where I have a problem because it isn't about
people finding comfort in tradition. It's about something else--
defining community not by something substantial that everyone finds
worth in-- being with family-- but in defining community by conformity
to a set of rituals that has no meaning.
> Wait a minute, you're saying you have your own favorite family
> traditions? Glad to hear it!
Your problem is you have started with a false premise-- that I am
reflexively against tradition. And from the rest of your message, it
appears your flawed interpretation of my message has nothing to do with
what I actually wrote. Either my argument is too subtle for you or
you're reading comprehension skills need help.
I'm not against tradition. I'm against unexamined tradition. I'm
against traditions that people engage in without asking "why am I doing
this" and "what is it I value" and "how does this strengthen the
community" and othersuch.
And when people start to ask those questions, I believe people come
forward with a deeper understanding of what they value from that
tradition.
That doesn't mean the tradition is worthless (another distortion of what
I wrote). It means that you can separate out the rituals from what
matters. And that in turn lets you take those traditions and add,
subtract, and modify them to make them even more meaningful to you and
your family.
> So why do you feel you have to look down your nose at the traditions
> that others enjoy? That's so, how shall I put it,? Ethnocentric?
> Non-tolerant? Small-minded?
Thanks for the distortion of my statements, but I think those who can
read without your bias will come to a different view. They will see
that I am not against tradition, but I am against the notion that Dick
came up with-- that Thanksgiving is about conformity to a set of
arbitrary rituals, and it is that conformity that people find
commonality in.
I reject that notion, which is not the same as rejecting those
traditions and rituals. I agree with Dick that Thanksgiving is an
important holiday and that we as Americans feel a sense of commonality
with our neighbors. But I feel that commonality comes from the
gathering of families.