Finally got rid of that turkey!

Right down to the turkey’s lips and elbows  

 

                                                            by Robert LaFrance

 

            There! Finally! (Columnist licks his chops.) I have finally eaten the last possible morsel of that Thanksgiving turkey, and you know what? I also finally figured out one of the things we are being thankful for – not having to eat turkey again until Christmas.

            Last year I listed the many dozens of mealtime treats that can be made from leftover turkey, and I won’t bore the faithful and long-suffering reader with those, other than perhaps Turkey Tarragon Pickle Pudding, but this year I want to extol the virtues of the fabulous avian treat we call turkey.

            It has nothing to do with the country Turkey of course; it wouldn’t be English if it were logical. It was domesticated by the Aztecs in Mexico. Too bad they hadn’t refused it an exit visa.

            From a book of definitions collected by a chap named Frank Muir I quote: “The turkey has practically no taste except a dry, fibrous flavour reminiscent of a mixture of warmed-up Plaster of Paris and horsehair. The texture is like wet sawdust and the whole vast feathered swindle has the piquancy of a boiled mattress.” – William Connor, the late British newspaper columnist.

            That pretty much covers the turkey.

            We have a lot of traditions - like Thanksgiving turkey – that could easily be put aside. While driving on the right side of the road may not be one of them, certainly Valentine’s Day could be placed in the dustbin (as the British say) along with other British holdouts like Boxing Day. When I was a kid my neighbour Big Sully used to always come down and beat me up on December 26. Finally my mother dropped him with a right cross to the chin and explained that the ‘boxing’ part of Boxing Day referred to putting unwanted Christmas presents in boxes and taking them to ‘the poor’. I Tilley in the 1950s, that would have included just about everyone except Hiram Kinney’s dog, who lived well.

            Talking about the needy brings me to the Good Samaritan Food Bank. It recently had its fall food drive and did all right, including getting some good donations of money, but it always needs more. They also accept returnable empty bottles and cans that they can take in for money.

            Here’s what the Good Samaritan Food Bank almost always needs: canned meats, baby food, pasta sauce, canned milk, oatmeal and childrens’ items like small juice boxes and snack bars. And bring in those returnables. Those people who run the food bank are amazing; let’s not disappoint them. The food bank is located along the Aroostook Road in Andover, just downriver from McAsphalt.

            In what must be some kind of a record, the food bank has been broken into four times in the past year. I’m trying to picture the type of person who would break into a place to steal food when all they have to do is walk in the front door and ask for it.

            The rest of column will be devoted to less important items, but still those that are part of our everyday lives. For example, how many of you readers know the meaning and the origin of the word ‘smithereens’? Well, I’ll tell you. It means ‘bits and pieces’ and it was evidently coined by an IRA explosives specialist in County Donegal (the home of some of my ancestors). Watching a building explode due to one of his bombs in 1921, he said to his wife: “Begorrah! That jalopy is now smithereens, my girl!”

Among the items I bought on my latest trip to a grocery store was a cut of ‘cured ham’. It seems that for the past few weeks if I’ve heard nothing but news stories about the XL meat plant in Brooks, Alberta, where the wonderful bacterium eColi was found. My question is, why haven’t we heard about whatever used to be wrong with the ham I just bought? If it’s cured, then what was it cured of? Consumers need to know these things.

Last week I saw a hummingbird, probably the last one of the fall before they head south to Kissimmee, Florida. No wait! That’s my sister! The point is, they were about to head south for the winter. Usually when you see one hummingbird, another comes along soon to fight with the first.

Sure enough, about a minute later I saw a second hummingbird who immediately attacked the first one. That’s all they seem to do – fight. I wish I could explain to them that if they didn’t waste all that energy fighting they would probably be the size of eagles. Why do they act like married couples?

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