Feed ‘em and then fuel ‘em

They’ll be celebrating Thanksgiving in the USA at the end of the month and an awful lot of turkey will be consumed over the holiday weekend. Previously the meal was quite straightforward with the turkey being roasted in the oven until it was as dry as a bone and that was the duty done for another year. No-one particularily enjoyed it but it was one of those things you just had to do. In the southern states, people were a little bit closer to the land and knew the value of a dollar and so they reckoned ” Well if we’re going to go through with this silly ritual year after year we may as well enjoy the bird “.  And so, no doubt adopting the cooking process of the bird they ate on the other 364 days of the year, they came up with Southern Fried Turkey.
The turkey fryer is a large, supersized vat powered by bottled gas and the whole exercise is usually carried out with military precision on the stoep. The fryer is filled with peanut oil and brought to temperature and the whole turkey is immersed into the hot oil and deep-fried whole. The story goes that it cooks in about 45 minutes and is very crispy on the outside and deliciously juicy and tender inside. I’ve often been tempted to try it out myself at Xmas but it seems to me to be a little bit hit and miss to take a chance on for the one day of the year when you’re looking forward to a nice bit of turkey, anyway I’m more of a brining and slow roasting man myself. However the thing about the deep fried turkey that always intrigued me was what the hell do you do with 40 litres of turkey contaminated cooking oil when you’re finished ? One city just north of Dallas seems to have the ideal solution. Before anyone has a chance to be tempted to pour it into the city’s sewerage system, council workers are out in tankers, cruising the streets, blaring out the message ” Bring out your oil ” a bit like body collectors during the Great Plague. You see the city has a fleet of vehicles which run on alternative fuel and turkey fat is just dandy, in fact just as efficient a fuel as diesel. Thanksgiving and Xmas are bonanza times for the Director of Transport and I believe he is behind a new city campaign to get the citizens to eat turkey at other holiday periods especially at Easter – seems that you don’t get too much fat from those cute little bunnies.