SC - Thoughts on Black Turkey

[Nanna Rögnvaldardóttir]

Selene wrote:

>But the recipe and
>the story have been bumping around for many years now, and I finally became
>curious enough to attempt to prepare it.  As with the Neiman-Marcus Cookie
>Recipe, the worst that can happen it we'll have some good eats.


According to Jeffrey Steingarten, the recipe was first printed in Morton
Thompson´s newspaper column in the mid-1930s but the version Steingarten
used when cooking it was printed in Thompson´s book Joe, the Wounded Tennis
Player, in 1945. The story about Benchley and the lost manuscript is rather
suspect but the actual Benchley quote runs as follows (I understand it
appeared in Gourmet magazine in 1957):

"Several years ago I ate a turkey prepared and roasted by Morton Thompson. I
didn´t eat the whole turkey, but that wasn´t my fault. There were outsiders
present who ganged up on me ... I will just say that I decided at that time
that Morton Thompson was the greatest man since Brillat-Savarin, and for all
I know, Savarin wasn´t as good as Morton Thompson."

>My inquiry to the list was to find out if anyone here had ever cooked it,
or
>knew someone who had, and was the turkey anywhere near as good as
advertised?

As I said, I´ve only done the stuffing, which I found delicious, but I´ve
yet to try the roasting methods. Steingarten, who did try it, says in his
book: "Everyone who has tasted Thomson´s Turkey agrees completely. It may be
the only turkey worth consuming for gastronomic as well as symbolic
reasons."

Nanna