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To Roast a Turkey
In choosing a turkey select one with firm flesh, with the wings and end of the breast-bone limber, and sufficiently fat to be plump without any excess.
After the turkey has been picked and drawn, or as it ordinarily comes from the market, hold it over a gas jet or over burning paper to singe, taking care lest the fumes impart a disagreeable flavor to the meat.
Wash very thoroughly in cold water, not allowing it to stand, as that draws out the juices, and wipe dry.
When the turkey is stuffed, truss into shape as shown in the illustration, and roast, allowing twenty minutes to a pound besides the first half-hour for the heating. Baste frequently with the fat in fat in the pan. Put the turkey into a very hot oven to sear the skin so that the juices will not escape, and then modify the heat, keeping it at a moderate temperature.
A sound method with one figure that no longer holds: the roasting time. Everything else translates directly.
- The timing is the hingeTwenty minutes to the pound plus a half-hour would give a 14-lb bird over five hours and dry breast meat throughout. Modern practice is closer to 13-15 minutes per pound for an unstuffed bird, and the only reliable measure is a thermometer reading 165F in the thickest part of the thigh, away from bone.
- Oven temperatures"Very hot" in this period is usually reckoned at around 450-475F; the initial sear should last no more than 20-30 minutes. For "moderate," modern practice would put the remainder of the roast at 325-350F.
- Stuffed birdsIf the cavity is filled, the centre of the stuffing must also reach 165F, which usually means overcooking the breast. Baking the dressing separately avoids the conflict entirely.
- Do not wash the birdEstes is right that soaking leaches juices, but current food-safety guidance goes further and advises against rinsing poultry at all, since running water aerosolises bacteria across the sink and counter. Patting dry with paper towels is enough.
- SingeingHolding a bird over a gas flame removed the hair-like pinfeathers left by hand-plucking. Commercially processed turkeys are already singed; a pair of tweezers handles any stragglers.
- Judging the birdA limber breastbone tip and flexible wing joints indicated a young bird in a market selling fresh-killed poultry of varying ages. This test tells you nothing about a supermarket turkey, which is slaughtered young as a matter of course.
- BastingFrequent basting means frequent oven-door openings and a stalled roast. Two or three bastings are plenty, and a foil tent over the breast does more for moisture than any amount of spooning.
- Resting and yieldRest the bird 20-30 minutes before carving. Reckon on about a pound of raw weight per person, rather more if leftovers are wanted.
Good Things to Eat (1911) was written by Rufus Estes, born enslaved in Tennessee in 1857, who spent years as a Pullman dining-car chef and later cooked for the executives of a Chicago steel company. Its tone throughout is that of a professional explaining his working method rather than a domestic writer advising housewives. The instructions reflect a kitchen where turkeys arrived with pinfeathers still attached and ovens were judged by hand rather than dial. The very hot start followed by moderate heat rests on the old belief that searing "seals in the juices" -- a notion generally traced to the nineteenth-century chemist Justus von Liebig and since disproved, though the practice survives because a hot start does produce better browning.