Happy Thanksgiving, Yankee types

[Steamboat]

Smoking meat obviously goes back to somewhere between the Stone Age and the Iron Age, where man discovered the benefits of so doing.

But modern American BBQ is largely down to the UK‘s efforts, however indirectly. The slaves bought from the Africans by the Brits and sold to the Brit settlers in the New World had to eat. They were given the fattier and less desirable cuts of meat, and developed and refined techniques to render the fat out, and sauces to soften the meat. It is no coincidence that the usual cuts for BBQ are ribs, brisket etc. You could perfectly well make BBQ out of T-bone steak, but the slaves obviously never saw that. It’s also no coincidence that the places strongly associated with BBQ (Memphis, St Louis etc) have very large black populations.

I’m white as a milk bottle, but fkn love smoking meats, BBQing of any description in fact. One of my hobbies:

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That would be a great place to shoot deer and drink coffee.

 

[Steamboat]

Everything seems to taste better when you're half-hammered. I used to get a half-rack of ribs and baked beans from a BBQ place that was next to my apartment after spending the evening getting blasted. I regularly dumped half the shit on the floor and threw up the other half during the the time when I would try to put my head down. Happy days.

To much firewater, I will volunteer to drink it for you and you can have my water!

 

[Roadster280]

That would be a great place to shoot deer and drink coffee.

Loads of ’em in the lake bed in the winter, too. I just don’t see sport in killing animals myself. I don’t need to kill them to eat them, so I won’t. No criticism of others that do, but it’s not for me.

 

[Jacl]

Well, you lot did leave Tecumseh at a critical moment just as he was organizing the First Nation Confederation, and that was naughty of you, but we'll forgive you. Los Yanquis do have some uses. They do make some nice toys.
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With that head gear do they really need parachutes?

 

[Wightsparker]

Smoking meat obviously goes back to somewhere between the Stone Age and the Iron Age, where man discovered the benefits of so doing.

But modern American BBQ is largely down to the UK‘s efforts, however indirectly. The slaves bought from the Africans by the Brits and sold to the Brit settlers in the New World had to eat. They were given the fattier and less desirable cuts of meat, and developed and refined techniques to render the fat out, and sauces to soften the meat. It is no coincidence that the usual cuts for BBQ are ribs, brisket etc. You could perfectly well make BBQ out of T-bone steak, but the slaves obviously never saw that. It’s also no coincidence that the places strongly associated with BBQ (Memphis, St Louis etc) have very large black populations.

I’m white as a milk bottle, but fkn love smoking meats, BBQing of any description in fact. One of my hobbies:

View attachment 618883

Nice view from the verandah, but the banks of that little ol' stream makes me think of flash floods and roaring torrents.

 

[Steamboat]

Loads of ’em in the lake bed in the winter, too. I just don’t see sport in killing animals myself. I don’t need to kill them to eat them, so I won’t. No criticism of others that do, but it’s not for me.

That’s ok, but you are missing out on some great White Tail. The land of no sage is nice challenge to avoid.

 

[Roadster280]

Nice view from the verandah, but the banks of that little ol' stream makes me think of flash floods and roaring torrents.

Er, that’s why it’s there. It’s a lake bed. The lake is drawn down in the winter, to accommodate floodwaters. Because it’s so shallow and wide, the creek never gets strong currents, it just widens out. Further upstream it does get quite a torrent on when it’s in flood, but not here. In the summer it’s just a lake:

Last year it went from empty to almost full inside a week Mid February. They then let it drain down to about 12 ft above where it is now, before letting it fill up again for the summer.

 

[Sam The Bam]

Its just an excuse for getting even fatter every year.

I'll just leave this photo of Three English roses walking on the beach here.

 

[ABNredleg]

I've never seen one, but Americans will have big propane fired pots for frying entire turkeys in. The main attraction of them seems to be the ability to create some truly horrific accidents when the inevitable happens with a huge pot of boiling oil. Sometimes though they just manage to burn their houses down with them.

Turkeys belong in an oven. Deep fried turkey sounds absolutely vile. However, Americans are fond of fat and grease with their meat. Perhaps it's the sort of thing that might catch on in Scotland.

Deep fried turkey is fantastic, with a crispy skin and juicy meat. It is not greasy at all if you keep the oil at the right temperature. Yes, there is the potential for spectacular accidents but is perfectly safe if you do it properly (and stay sober). A lot of people rig a pulley on a stepladder to raise and lower the bird in order to keep their distance from the oil.

 

[Gone2ratshat]

That would be a great place to shoot deer and drink coffee.

My first thought also was I`d set my rifle up on the porch .

 

[Sam The Bam]

That would be a great place to shoot deer and drink coffee.

I could do that from the deck on the back of our house, it's not really on though for me. I prefer to get out and stalk them.

 

[Gone2ratshat]

I could do that from the deck on the back of our house, it's not really on though for me. I prefer to get out and stalk them.

I could also drop deer from my porch ,but as the house is quite high up and there are several houses below in front of the open land I think the local constabulary may get over excited.

 

[Sam The Bam]

I could also drop deer from my porch ,but as the house is quite high up and there are several houses below in front of the open land I think the local constabulary may get over excited.

We have a similar laws here as well.

 

[goodoldboy]

That would be a great place to shoot deer and drink coffee.

Shush now!

Anyway, I've had four of five Thanksgiving dinners and thoroughly enjoyed them. The only thing that was neither here nor there was the pumpkin pie because all the varieties on offer had something else with them to give a bit of taste. The rest of it was delicious.

Yesterday someone mentioned the thinking behind the day itself. Here in rural England we still have Harvest Home on most farms, held on the last day of combining the grain, which is any time in September. It usually comprises trestle tables in one of the barns, sometimes with roast beef whereas others could be cold meats, salads etc. Always some decent puddings such as home made fruit pies and always plenty of beer, wine and cider. Spouses usually in attendance to take the workers home after their long, long hours the previous weeks.

So there we are, still not sure about deep fried turkey though!

Cheers...

 

[Sam The Bam]

So there we are, still not sure about deep fried turkey though!

I have to say that when first confronted with deep fried turkey I thought it a bit on the yuck side as well. On trying it though I found it to be very tasty and succulent as well.

 

[Niamac]

Cooking game birds.

Problem tends to be that the breast meat is overcooked and thus like cardboard and/or the leg meat is not quite done.

Solution I came across and tested to my satisfaction, with a pheasant at least.

First thing pan fry the pheasant, in a generous amount of oil, on each leg for 10 minutes on a medium heat. An onion cut in half provides a effective means of keeping the pheasant from falling over.

Then continue as normal ie oven roast with or without tinfoil. Watch out for overcooking.

Need a biggish frying pan for a turkey.

 

[goodoldboy]

Cooking game birds.

Problem tends to be that the breast meat is overcooked and thus like cardboard and/or the leg meat is not quite done.

Solution I came across and tested to my satisfaction, with a pheasant at least.

First thing pan fry the pheasant, in a generous amount of oil, on each leg for 10 minutes on a medium heat. An onion cut in half provides a effective means of keeping the pheasant from falling over.

Then continue as normal ie oven roast with or without tinfoil. Watch out for overcooking.

Need a biggish frying pan for a turkey.

My cousin is a good cook, he always takes the legs and wings from any bird or fowl and cooks them separately. Always good eating...

 

[Mufulira42]

wahshield/
do people really fry whole turkeys? Regularly?
What's the advantage (apart from 'you've been framed'-style amusing videos)?
/wah

Deep frying a whole turkey in a vat of bubbling peanut oil after it has been rubbed with speshul spices etc. and it takes half the times to cook as compared to a regular oven -- results are pretty tasty. Smokehouse pre-spiced turkey is also most toothsome!

 

[Sam The Bam]

Your lack of knowledge about the history of smoking meats is disturbing.

Who GAF about the history of smoking meat. I smoke a lot of game meat taken. Deer, bighorn sheep, ducks, turkey, geese, pork and fish. During the 18th and 19th centuries smoking meat was a way of preserving meat.

After being smoked or salted the meat was usually kept in jars, one common preservation and storing technique was to pot meat. Another was digging a hole in the ground and shoring it up with timber inside of a building and creating a cool storage where meat could be hung and stored after being smoked or salted.

The added bonus of smoking your own meat as opposed to buying smoked meats is that it isn't full of chemicals that are added to store bought meat.

ETA that the potting of meat to preserve it was more common in the Southern warmer climates where as in the colder Northern States the hole in the ground was the more widely used.

 

[Sam The Bam]

My cousin is a good cook, he always takes the legs and wings from any bird or fowl and cooks them separately. Always good eating...

Yep that's what I do as well.