I'm begging you to rip the spine out of your turkey
On controlling the things you can in a world designed for tastelessness
I usually love Thanksgiving. Not for its lame alt-history take on the pilgrims or even for its ability to ~bring people together~ around a plump bird, but because the focus is placed squarely on preparing large amounts of delicious food. As an Australian roller derby player once said to me while she struggled to recall the name of the celebration, it’s “the holiday for eating.”
I grew up with a terrible relationship with food. Thanksgiving has always represented a day of stacking carbs on carbs with, if not zero guilt, then at least more tempered and delayed guilt than usual.
By the time I was 13 or so, I’d become the de facto Thanksgiving chef in my family. I was an excellent cook by then, and I loved the power of creating sustenance for a dining room full of guests.
This is the first year in recent memory that I’m not cooking. I’m still coming to terms with my disability and what it means for me, and this year it means that I don’t have the spare energy to travel, or to host, or to swear that I’m doing a pared-down Thanksgiving menu for a few friends and knowing full well that I can’t resist cooking a full spread. I have international travel plans for Christmas and a big work deadline pegged to the end of the year, and I literally can’t do it all.
Don’t worry about me: We’re going to our favorite Caribbean restaurant, where we’ll tip like 40% and eat spiced bread pudding and have a grand old time. And I can’t pretend I’m going to miss the general sentiment of Thanksgiving this year, when the nation it celebrates is funding colonial violence and genocide in the name of my people. That puts a real damper on my general enthusiasm for gravy.
But if you’re having a standard shindig this year, I’m asking you to uphold a few traditions in my honor:
Spatchcock the damn bird
Here’s the thing: The turkey is a trap. Poultry in this country has been bred to be flavorless and large. You can get around this, to some extent, by seeking out a small farm with heritage birds. That’s a great thing to do anyway, since industrial poultry farming is an ethical and epidemiological shit show, but times are tough and inflation is wild and it’s not a moral failing to take advantage of your grocery store’s cheap turkey promotion. Spatchcocking your turkey is another solution. See, the thermodynamics of cooking a standard butterball are borderline insane. It’s like trying to roast a watermelon full of muscle. By butterflying the bird and spreading it out flat, you can cook it more evenly. This minimizes the risk of food safety issues, speeds up the cooking time to a tidy 90 minutes or so, and results in a bird that’s juicy and crispy in all the right places.
You might think that ripping the spine out of a raw turkey is beyond your culinary skillset. I’m here to tell you it’s not. All you need are a good pair of kitchen scissors and two arms, and you can borrow any three of those things if you don’t have them on hand. You can find really thorough instructions at Serious Eats.
There’s nothing for releasing pent-up rage like ripping out a spine and breaking a few ribs. If this process repulses you, well, same. Spatchcocking a turkey simultaneously makes me more excited to eat the meat at hand and less excited to eat meat in general, which is a win-win.
Waste less food
I wrote a whole guide to minimizing food waste while still enjoying your holiday. Remember that severed spinal column? It makes delicious gravy. You’re welcome.
Make this cranberry lime pie
It’s just really fucking good. Pro tip: you don’t need to do the curd in a double-boiler, you can just make it in your blender. I put this recipe truly over the top by candying my own ginger and making Alton Brown’s ginger snap recipe to serve as the crust. But as I’m writing this, I’m starting to understand why my body is in total shambles. Please just go buy cookies like a sane person.
Talk about things that matter
Here are some tips on how to have difficult conversations about a ceasefire in Palestine with your friends and family.
If you’re reading this, know that I love you and wish you a wonderful holiday weekend. I’m grateful for your support. If you have the means to get a paid subscription here or on Patreon, I’ll be extra grateful. The future of my podcast is kind of up in the air at the moment, and support on these platforms will help me keep making the kind of content you love in 2024 no matter how that shakes out. Gobble gobble, etc.
Rachel’s Recs
Listen to: My podcast for weird dinner table facts
Watch: Waltz With Bashir if you’re having trouble understanding what Israel is doing
Read: Babel, Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of The Oxford Translators' Revolution
Buy: This “working on my bog body” shirt I made just for you