On Turkey

Matthew Yglesias has laid into Turkeys with this post, ending thus:

...note that you really never see turkey on the menu of a great restaurant — the world’s greatest chefs can presumably pull off something pretty good for an occasion that requires turkey, but they have no confidence in the ingredient.

For a long time I suffered this prejudice as well until I visited the Yucatan and experienced Turkey in a rich mole sauce.

Deeply satisfying as a culinary treat, and, um, something of a soporific, which is an interesting side effect for family festivities.

On the flip side, the American Turkey, is, as many have already noted, genetically mutated in a most ridiculous fashion, bland, tasteless and ultimately suffering from the same disease our tomatoes suffer–Americanus Efficientus. Perfect year round and almost entirely inedible. There’s an analogy there for the end of the American Empire, but I’ll leave that up to my gentle readers to, um, pick apart….

Happy Thanksgiving,
DM