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Roast Turkey, with Oyster Dressing
After washing turkey thoroughly, wipe dry and rub with a little salt. Have ready some bread cut in dice, salt, pepper, sage and one tablespoonful of butter, two dozen raw oysters.
Mix all together and stuff the turkey. Sew or skewer it; put in an oven and bake two and a half hours, basting frequently.
A bare-bones set of directions that assumes you know your bird and your stove. The gaps worth filling are the oven temperature, the size of the turkey, and the stuffing's internal temperature.
- Oven temperatureNo number is given because the cook was expected to judge her own range. Roast at 325F; the recipe never states a weight, and 2.5 hours would suit only a fairly small bird, with a stuffed one likely needing longer.
- The hinge: stuffing temperatureRaw oysters packed inside a bird sit in the slowest-heating part of the roast. The centre of the dressing must reach 165F, and the thigh 175F, before the turkey comes out. If the breast is done first, take the temperature of the stuffing regardless and keep roasting or scoop the dressing into a dish to finish.
- Bread cut in diceDay-old firm white bread in half-inch cubes, dried out slightly in a low oven. Fresh soft bread collapses into paste once the oyster liquor hits it.
- Quantities to expectTwo dozen oysters and one tablespoon of butter is a modest amount of dressing by current habits — roughly 6 to 8 cups of bread cubes. Scale up in proportion for a larger bird, and add oyster liquor rather than water for moisture.
- SageIf using dried ground sage, a teaspoon is plenty for this volume; it turns bitter and dusty in quantity. Fresh sage, chopped, can go in at about a tablespoon.
- Sewing or skeweringA trussing needle and kitchen twine, or metal skewers laced with string, close the cavity. One modern alternative is to truss the legs and cover the opening with a heel of bread, which is easier to remove.
- BastingThe recipe does not say how often "frequently" is; every 20 to 30 minutes is a common reading. Basting does little for the meat but helps the skin colour; opening the door constantly costs you heat, so once every 30 to 40 minutes is a fair compromise.
- YieldA bird of around 10 lb with this dressing would serve 8 to 10, with leftovers; the recipe itself gives neither a weight nor a yield.
Oyster stuffing is a long-established American holiday habit, and it survives here because oysters were cheap, abundant and shipped inland by rail and barrel through much of the nineteenth century — which is why a turkey recipe can call for two dozen raw ones without comment. The pairing is usually associated with the Chesapeake and the Northeast, where the oyster season and the turkey season overlapped at Thanksgiving. The terseness of the instructions is typical of the period's meat chapters: the reader was assumed to have roasted birds before and to need only the proportions for the dressing.