[Sca-cooks] turkey roasters

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Generys ferch Ednuyed:
>So tell me more about larding turkeys? I usually stuff butter under the
>skin, which I guess works in a similar way, but the skin doesn't look as
>pretty as it could (the bits with the most butter get over done aka burnt) -
>tastes wonderful though, esp. with lots of rosemary mixed into the butter...
>
>Generys

You cut firm fat, like pork fatback or fatty bacon, into matchstick 
strips, say, 1/8 inch x 1/8 inch by two or three inches long. Some 
cooks like to marinate these in brandy with chopped herbs. (Keeping 
them cold is a good idea, though.)

You then use a larding needle, which is any of several tools, ranging 
from the simple to the complex to the bizarre, to poke a hole in the 
meat and introduce a matchstick strip of the fat. Some needles are 
like large sewing needles, and you just tuck the end of a stick of 
fat into the hole/eye, and put a stitch in the meat, leaving the fat 
behind so it protrudes from both ends of the hole made by the needle 
(like a tunnel). Other needles are hollow, and have a clip in the 
back end, which you release when the fat is in the meat. The ones I 
like are completely hollow, with a groove running along the length; 
with these, you slide the fat strip into the needle, poke the needle 
into the meat, and use your thumb (or sometimes there's a little 
sliding gizmo built into the needle) to detach the fat from the 
needle as you slide it out. I've even seen some of this last type 
that have an edge along the groove, so you can poke the needle into a 
block of fat, give it a twist, like an apple corer, and pull out the 
needle already loaded with fat.

The fat does show, and some would say it spoils the pristine look of 
the breast skin of a roast bird, with all the little holes, but if 
you do it in neat little rows, it can actually be quite attractive, 
especially as the fat sticking out of the bird cooks and browns. Lots 
of older cookbooks have drawings of larded birds; they look sort of 
spiny.

Yet another foodway from before the days of central heating and the 
discovery of the hardened artery...

Adamantius