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A Tuscan Thanksgiving
Entry 73 of 195 | show all | print this entry |
(Lizzie Guise, Amy's sister visiting from Madrid)
Ahh! Thanksgiving in Tuscany with the Hemphills! Anyone who has spent any time at all with this family knows two things. First, Jim is an amazing cook. And second, they are extremely generous. An Italian Thanksgiving with this family is like spending the holiday with the Medici's -- only without the incest. So when we were out that day running errands and Jim asked me to go help him carry something "heavy", it was the least I could do. Then the real fun began.
I didn't realize when we went to the butcher that Jim had preordered a 50 pound turkey.
(It should be noted here that Jim was cooking for 6 adults and 4 kids, most with particular food oddities: vegetarians, lactose-intolerants, health nuts, and one person afraid to touch cheese. Steven Starr can't even feed these people.)
The kind Italian butcher took us to the back of his shop, where he heaved upon his block a bird the size of a headless hobbit. He started jabbing at it with a long knife, chattering away in Italian. I believe the conversation when a bit like this:
From the American side (abridged):
Jim: Hello
Italian butcher: Hello. Do you want this whole bird?
Jim: Yes
Italian butcher, poking at the legs: Do you want me to cut it up? Would you like me to cut off the thighs?
Jim: Yes that's great.
Italian butcher: And do you want me to maybe hack this part off, too?
Jim, pointing to his chest: Yes, we only want the breast. We're giving the rest to the cat.
Italian butcher: Huh?
Jim: ...Giving it to the cat. The cat. Meow....Meow.
Silence. The butcher looks at me. I smile.
From the Italian side (presumed):
Jim: Hello
Italian butcher: Hello. This is a big bird, too big for two people to carry. Can I chop it apart for you?
Jim: Yes
Italian butcher, poking at the legs: We found this turkey running sprints around town. Have you seen his quads?
Jim: Yes, I'm jealous.
Italian butcher: You look like you lift, though. What can you bench?
Jim, pointing to his chest: I'm concentrating on my pecs.
Italian butcher: Huh?
Jim: ...My pecs. You know. Meow...Meow.
Silence. The butcher looks at me. I smile.
Jim and I leave the store and run more errands until the butcher has finished. We return later to collect the bird, which was placed in four separate bags. Jim tells me that although he has paid for the whole thing, he doesn't want it all to go to waste, so he is going to give everything but the breast back to the butcher. At first the butcher is confused as we begin unwrapping the bird and handing it, limb by muscled limb, back to him. He thinks we are unhappy. He thinks we don't want to pay for it all. He thinks we are crazy Americans. Maybe we are. But by the time the confusion is cleared and we leave the shop, he thinks we are at least generous ones.
That night, Jim prepared an unbelievable feast. Fresh pumpkin soup, pici with shaved truffles, mashed potatoes, broccoli rabe sautéed in garlic, cornbread stuffing with roasted chestnuts, and sliced turkey that was finished off in the fireplace. (Yes, the bird did fit in the oven. But it takes a while to cook a hobbit, and Celsius doesn't work as well as our good ole' American Fahrenheit.) For dessert, a cheese plate with local preserves. Even Mr. Starr would have been impressed.
If you're lucky enough to spend Thanksgiving in Tuscany with the Hemphills, then you must have done something right in your life. Or at least, they have. And you're lucky to be brought along for their journey. Thanks to Jim and Amy and my wonderful niece and nephews for an amazing day. We all have so much for which to be thankful!
(Jim)
If there is such a thing as a free-range turkey, this must have been one such. The bird was enormous, but the most astonishing feature was the drumsticks, enormous bulbous protuberances as large as my calves. The bird must have been terrifying in life, an Italian birdzilla with eyes like jellied fire and thighs like Floyd Landis. A remnant of an earlier world perhaps it was, a cross between a turkey and a Great Auk that lingered beyond its time in a remote hilltown under the Tuscan sun. And the Italians took it, and nurtured it with bruschetta drizzled with extra-virgin olive oil (with a hint of garlic and a sprinkle of sea salt), until it grew beyond the measure of all other birds that walk.
Or maybe it was just a really big turkey.
My negotiation with the butchers about the process of cutting down the turkey from whole bird to free-standing breast was challenging. In the end we were able to get it done with a variety of gestures. Once the dismemberment was complete, I tried to communicate that we did not need the wings, thighs and drumsticks, and would be happy to let them keep them. Taking my cue from the butcher's prior words, I gestured at my chest and said, "Busto per us," pointing at Lizzie and me. "Oltro (other) per cat." (Breast for people, leftovers for the housecat, I was trying to express.) Look of puzzlement. I tried again. "Busto us, oltro per meow meow." The two butchers looked at each other with dawning horror. Did I think I had purchased a cat carcass? Do we eat house pets in America? What kind of sick culture do we come from?
I pantomimed dividing the bird into different packages. The butcher very evidently thought I was trying to re-negotiate the deal, angling for a lower price after he had tied up scarce capital in an enormous custom-ordered bird. His face darkened and he gripped his cleaver more tightly. In the end, I let him wrap and bag it all, paid for the whole, and then gave them back the extra parts. Once he understood he was not being ripped off by a swindling American, he was very gracious.
Tuscan turkey butchery departs from American practice in at least one important way. They do not remove the neck, which remains protruding from the upper back, on the opposite side from the breast. This gives the turkey breast a tendency to roll around in the over like a small boat in a high sea. Several times I looked into the oven only to see that the turkey had fallen over again, and was lying halfway on its side, pressed against the window like a sleeping drunk in a car. We finally propped it up with a sort of Lincoln-log arrangement of peeled carrots.
I find turkey hard to cook in the best of circumstances, at home with multiple meat thermometers, an oven precisely calibrated in Fahrenheit, a clear recipe to follow and a pop-up poultry timer to confirm the bird is done. With a centigrade oven and no meat thermometers, I was forced to judge doneness by eye alone. I began cutting slices of turkey, pleased with how moist and juicy it had stayed without basting. I ate a piece as I carved, until I noticed that the already-cut fragments were lying in a pool of pink juices, and my own slice was essentially turkey sushi. We cooked the already-cut pieces until done over the wood fire, while we returned the remaining bird to the oven.
At this point, I'm wondering about the incubation period for salmonella. Wouldn't it be exciting to take dysentery to Egypt, instead of acquiring it there?
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