[lit-ideas] Re: Physics, Philosophy, Turkey, Urban Myth

From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 08:47:47 -0500
> [Original Message]
> From: david ritchie <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: Bev Hogue <hogueb@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 11/23/2005 12:53:19 AM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Physics, Philosophy, Turkey, Urban Myth
>
>
> Some people on this list cook; others pride themselves on their  
> sardines and vegan pizzas.  None need be excluded from the debate  
> that follows.  Here is the issue.  Those of us who eat meat on  
> Thanksgiving will put a turkey in the oven and, one way or another-- 
> here factionism enters in--cook it.  I am not concerned here with  
> whether you cover the thing with aluminum foil, start with breasts  
> down, stick the corpse on a beer can, douse the beast in brine.   
> These are the schisms of kitchen belief.
>
> What bothers me is an American appetite for cold food.  I have come  
> to live with the potluck supper, an euphemism for "let's eat  
> everything cold."  And  I know that Thanksgiving is supposed to be a  
> Puritan festival--and how better to feel Puritan than by eating food  
> that ought to be hot, cold?--but I have reached my limit of patience  
> with daft advice in the newspaper.  Today's Oregonian has a  
> Thanksgiving Turkey expert explaining, "You don't take [the turkey  
> from the oven] to the table.  You *hide* it.  I hide it in the  
> garage.  Now you put the side dishes in the oven.  Then I call  
> everyone to the table for the first course.  All you're doing is  
> buying time while the turkey rests--half an hour or 45 minutes, if  
> you play it right."
>
> Our garage temperature is currently about thirty two degrees (normal  
> scale, not foreign).  Forty five minutes in this temperature would  
> give you what?  Near-frozen turkey.
>
> Americans will tell you that a roast beast continues to cook after  
> you take it out of the oven and thus, like a clockwork toy that needs  
> time to unwind, you must let it "rest."  So much of a shibboleth has  
> this become that I am beset on all sides when I try to ask for a  
> piece that is fresh from the oven and hot.
>
> My questions to you are: where did this notion of a well-rested dead  
> beast come from?  What does it mean concerning the American Way of  
> Death?  Why don't some like it hot?
>


I'll take a shot at this but no guarantees of scientific accuracy.  I think
"resting" is a way for the proteins to congeal (close enough, huh?).  The
same thing is done for a lasagna.  If you take a lasagna straight out of
the oven and serve it, it will fall apart on you.  Not so bad, it's piping
hot, I rather prefer it that way.  But, the tradeoff is a mass of cheese
and tomato sauce that doesn't look like a lasagna.  On the other hand, if
the lasagna sits a while (10 minutes or so, not long), when you slice it,
you'll have nice squares that look like lasagna, and you could decorate it
with parsley, sorry, cilantro.  Bread and pie don't improve on sitting
(limited protein).  They're best right out of the oven, in my opinion.  I
would imagine a turkey straight from the oven would cut more cleanly than a
lasagna straight out of the oven.  I suspect though, that nobody's ever cut
a turkey straight from the oven and this is all urban legend to cover up
for all the mayhem that goes on in the kitchen in trying to get the feast
on the table, as Julie says.  Part of the worry/adrenaline ritual too. 
Thanksgiving and Christmas wouldn't be the same without it.  Alton Brown on
the Food Channel ("Good Eats") is a food technologist.  He explains things
like osmotic pressure and other chemistry that ultimately is what cooking
is.  He's a little too simple, but as close to food technology as
television gets.  Any more complicated and nobody would watch it.  There's
also Unwrapped, how they manufacture candy and chips, also very simplified.


Andy Amago


> David Ritchie
> Portland, Oregon
>
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[lit-ideas] Re: Physics, Philosophy, Turkey, Urban Myth

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