If There Were No Butchers, I'd Be a Vegetarian.

Thanksgiving 2005

SO...I'm looking through my Brazilian cookbook, Traditional Recipes of the Brazilian Kitchen (1976) aka Receitas Tradicionais da Cozinha Brasileira, this morning for a particular recipe that I need and I came across: Turkey cooked Brazilian Style (roughly translated).

I glance and do a double take. This is what it says (translated as closely as possible to the original):

When you buy the turkey, calculate 300 grams per person, if he is already dead and clean; this will correspond to half a kilo per person if the turkey is still alive. Give him a cup of cachaca (liquor made from sugar cane) half an hour before you kill him. When he is "Falling down drunk" cut off his head in a single chop and hang him upside down so the blood will run out. Next de-feather him, while he is still "hot", avoiding having to scald him. If you do it after, you will harm the flavor. De-feather, scorch the fuzz, clean and wash as you would usually do with a chicken (because I'm cooking chickens from scratch...not.). Leave him in vinha-d'alho (wine garlic marinade) (wine, onion, garlic, salt, parsley, green onion, black pepper and any herb of your taste such as: oregano, rosemary, basil, or other.)

As I read this excerpt, my mouth dropped open, and I laughed and then I translated it for my husband. He said "Not what you had in mind for dinner tonight, eh?"..."Uhhh, no."

Here is what I see:

1) "Dead and Clean"...my turkeys are always dead and clean...those of my predecessors...not so much. (I remember my great-aunt sitting on a tree stump in her back yard...with sugar cane fields and coffee fields around her before it turned to dense forest, plucking the chicken we were going to be having for dinner.)

2) The turkey is referred to as a "him" not an "it."

3) Get him drunk on sugar cane liquor before you lop his head off.

4) Pluck him while he's still hot so you don't sacrifice flavor.

5) Just do it like you did the chicken for last weeks dinner.

6) Bathe him in wine to make him real tasty.

I'm sure freshly slaughtered turkey is delicious, but there's a whole process before the cooking takes place that I'm going to be such a girl about. Meaning, "Ewwww" "No Way" "Not gonna happen" "My nails..." "Gotta wash my hair" "Go ahead and get that started, I'll be right back...I Promise!" and etc.

I mean, come on, killing my own food...please...that's not happening anytime soon, if ever. Lopping the head off of something, no. Hanging it upside down...blood everywhere, what a mess. Nope--no time for that today.

Thank you Mr. Butcher, for everything you do for me so that I can live a modern life with minimally dirty hands.

...But I will admit, getting a turkey drunk...that could just be plain old fashioned farm fun!