Every Thanksgiving day I think of the time I cooked my first holiday turkey.
My husband and I had only been married about three years and we had two babies. We lived in a tiny unfinished cabin way out in the Ozark hills of southwest Missouri to raise chickens - two huge two-story houses filled with 8,000 clucking birds.
Every night when Jerry arrived home from his job delivering Purina feed we'd start the task of feeding our chickens. We had automatic water troughs, but had to hand-feed the 50 lb. sacks of mixed chicken feed. It took all evening.
In the fall we decided to try our hand at raising turkeys instead of chickens. After they got big enough we let them roam outside. Every time I'd step out my door they'd run up and begin pecking my legs, and I'd kick them away. It didn't hurt a bit, like a chicken peck, but it always scared me and I hated those birds, alive. I relished the thought of cooking one for our Thanksgiving meal.
The only problem, I'd never cooked a turkey dinner. We'd lived with my in-laws since our marriage and I'd watched mother Lela pluck hens.
The afternoon before Thanksgiving Jerry caught the bird for me and chopped off its head on the chopping block while I boiled a big bucket of water. After that dead gobbler quit his twitching I grabbed him by the legs and dipped him head (or headless) first into the boiling water. I let the feathers get real soggy, then I lay him on the soft grass and began plucking. The feathers came out real easy, by the handfuls. I picked off all the tiny hairs so it was totally free of any fuzz.
I carried that naked bird into the house and washed it in the sink. I slit him open with a sharp knife and pulled out the gizzard and liver and heart. I put these in a pan to boil while I made pumpkin pies.
Thanksgiving morning I arose early and placed that turkey in a roaster. I rubbed him down with butter and salt and popped it in the oven. Ummmm, the aroma. As it baked I cooked mashed potatoes and green beans. I made giblet gravy from that turkey's innards, adding a little thickening to the broth and topping it off with sliced boiled eggs, just like I'd seen mama do. I made deviled eggs and opened a jar of Aunt Sybil's sweet home-canned pickles.
At last I pulled the cooked turkey from the oven. He was a beautiful golden brown and smelled marvelous. Jerry sharpened the butcher knife and tore off the wings and legs and thighs. He cut them into chunks and arranged them on a platter, then began slicing the white meat of the breast.
All at once he exclaimed, "What in the world is this?"
I looked at the skeleton of that turkey and realized what I had (hadn't) done. I hadn't realized there were other "things" inside of animals that needed to be disposed of. So I had literally cooked that bird intact.
Well, we threw the rest of that turkey out to the dogs. We ate the part Jerry had already sliced, and never told our guests.
I've cooked many turkey dinners since that time, though I've never since cleaned another turkey - I let the butcher take care of that. I will never forget how I failed to clean my first turkey properly.
And that was the last batch of turkeys we ever raised.