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Boning a Turkey

Some wonders never do cease. The same conjurer's trick of the speaking head which Cervantes says so deeply impressed poor Don Quixote still astonishes and mystifies some portion of the public at the wizard's show, and our wicked butchers still find some customers can be set strangely pondering when they are told that hotel cooks can take all the bones out of a turkey without ever cutting the skin, as if it were a feat like drawing a large iron ring through the neck of a vial. There was no difficulty in making the egg stand on end when Columbus had damaged the shell a little, and you can get at the inwardness of a turkey quite easily after laying the skin of the back open. Cut close to the bone with a sharp-pointed knife till the hip joints and wing joints are reached and cut partially around, then with the heavy handle end of a carving knife chop through those joints, and going a little further, loosening all along, the whole backbone portion can presently be pulled out forcibly, leaving the limbs and breast to be boned separately. The wings and drumsticks have only to be boned part way, as the meat is tucked into the body; the rest may be chopped off. While of course neat work is better than slovenly it does not quite spoil the job if the skin does get an unkind cut sometimes; the very top of the breast bone is the place requiring the most care; better cut into the bone a little than risk a perforation where it will show so plainly on the galantine.

As the turkey is to be pressed in the cloth after cooking there should be no bulging ends or seams in the way to leave their mark.