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Turkey

The turkey is much esteemed and usually commands a high price, especially at Christmas, when most extravagant sums are often demanded and obtained for large, well-fed birds. Turkeys are in season from September to March, and are at their best in December and January. If the weather is suitable, they should be hung fully a week before being cooked. In very cold weather, care must be taken that they are not frozen in hanging, and if this is the case, they should be brought into a warm place for some hours before being cooked, or they will be spoilt. The hen bird is considered the best. Brillat Savarin says: "The turkey is the largest, and if not the most delicate, at least the most savoury, of domestic poultry. It enjoys the singular advantage of assembling round it every class of society. When our farmers and wine-growers regale themselves on a winter's evening, what do we see roasting before the kitchen fire, close to which the white-clothed table is set? A turkey. When the useful tradesman, or the hard-worked artist, invites a few friends to an occasional treat, what dish is he expected to set before them? A nice roast turkey stuffed with sausage-meat and Lyons chestnuts. And in our highest gastronomical society, when politics are obliged to give way to dissertations on matters of taste, what is desired, what is awaited, what is looked out for at the second course? A truffled turkey. In my `Secret Memoirs,' I find sundry notes recording that on many occasions its restorative juice has illumined diplomatic faces of the highest eminence."