TheBanyanTree: Cooking the carcass

[Barb Edlen]

This is fascinating, Russ! I never knew this. I love me some soup, so I am going to start doing this your way. 

Thanks for a delightful story and a great cooking insight! 

✿*ﾟ‘ﾟ･.｡.:*

> On Nov 29, 2015, at 1:37 PM, Russ Doden <russ.doden at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Ahh, Thanksgiving.  The time of feasting on turkey - and a table full of
> other goodies.  It is so easy to overdo everything.  As I have done for a
> number of years now, I spent my Thanksgiving with my "adopted family".
> They don't want me to be sitting home alone on Thanksgiving (or any other
> "family" holiday for that matter).  It isn't that they don't want me
> sitting here eating a bologna sandwich because they know I can cook.  Man,
> can I cook.  I can cook only too well - and as a result have to be careful
> to keep from really expanding my girth as my metabolism slows down as my
> age goes up.  Well, that must be the reason because I'm eating less, but
> not dropping any pounds.  I guess what they say about becoming really
> friendly with my fat cells, making it really hard to part as we get older
> is true.
> 
> Back to Thanksgiving.  My host family ALWAYS makes enough for 3 times more
> people than are there.  I understand why.  Many years ago, especially for
> my friend Susan, things were very tight growing up.  Food was often scarce
> to even non existent.  Having an overflowing pantry and freezer is part of
> her makeup.  So is really going over the top on big meal days.  I've
> learned to take a bunch of freezer bags with me when I go over, in addition
> to what ever small offerings I'm taking over to make the table groan.  This
> year was no exception.  I figured I'd bring home enough for 2 or 3 days.
> Hah, As if.  Every time I would think I was finished putting something in
> the freezer bag, as I was reaching over to get another bag, Sus was
> stuffing more in the bag just finished with more of whatever that bag
> contained.  It was embarrassing - but her family doesn't like leftovers!
> Maybe one meal of leftovers, but that is it!  How can a person not like
> leftovers?  I grew up looking forward to leftover meals.
> 
> OK, so back to the subject.  I seem to have a bad case of distraction
> today.  I have one big freezer bag I call my "carcass bag".  It is a two
> gallon or more freezer bag.  I can fit most turkey carcasses in it, after
> doing a bit of disassembly.  Every year, Sus and I seem to flip a coin to
> who gets the carcass.  This year she said I get it by default because her
> freezer is full.  I think she may just want me to be sure and have plenty
> of soup stock.  People watch us fussing over the carcass and when we tell
> them we "cook the carcass" the usual response is "ewwwww gross"!  Well, it
> doesn't look pretty, but oh the goodie a person gets!  This year as we were
> "bagging the bird" she kept tossing bits of odd pieces of turkey meat that
> was still laying on the cutting board into the bag.  Like I hadn't taken
> enough already!  Sheesh.
> 
> Friday I did the "first cooking" of the carcass, after picking out the big
> chunks of meat and putting them in a second container for leftover turkey
> sandwiches.  Some friends of mine stopped by to drop off a tool they had
> borrowed and when they came in the house, the aroma of something yummy
> cooking filled the house.  She took the lid off the pot to see what I was
> cooking - and started to laugh.  He came over and looked visibly shaken.
> She's the strong one of that family - I always have questions about him
> anyhow.  A nice person, but  strange.  They are a nice young couple that
> have begun to look to me as a mentor for how to do things around the house
> (they never learned) as well as metaphysical stuff.  They had fun teasing
> me about cooking a turkey skeleton.  They asked why I was doing that
> because they knew I had a reason.  She had never cooked a turkey carcass or
> even chicken carcass before!  After most of the meat was off, in the trash
> it would go.
> 
> When I told them that I was making soup stock you could see the light start
> to glimmer.  When I explained that the yummy soups I make are made from
> home made stock that results from cooking the carcass, they started to
> connect the dots.
> 
> Soooo, after the carcass cooled off Friday, into the fridge it went.  I
> didn't think it would thicken up when I first put it in the fridge because
> it was still so "liquid".  Well, when I pulled it out of the fridge this
> morning to start getting the small bones removed from the "liquid", I found
> I didn't have any liquid.  It was like jello.  YEA!  Good stock!  After
> removing all the small bones and pulling any remaining meat out of the
> nooks and crannies of some of the bones, I have a HUGE bowl of jelly like
> soup stock.  Then I cracked the bones of the remaining large bones and
> tossed them back in the pot with fresh water to cook a bit longer.  Getting
> that goodie out of the bones adds more to the stock!  Yeah, it looks pretty
> disgusting when making, but it is soooo good when it turns into soup
> stock.
> 
> As a sidelight, I talked to a couple medical types about this, and they all
> say that everyone should do this because the stock you get is not only rich
> in nutrients, but it also has a lot of glucosomine and other needed things
> that are missing in the commercial stocks a person buys!
> 
> After I let things cools a bit, I'll mix the "jelly" from Friday's cooking
> with the new liquid from the second cooking and then package it all up in
> quart freezer bags.  I'm thinking I'll have 4 or 5 quarts of soup stock
> when I'm all done.  Into the freezer it will go.  One quart of stock is so
> rich and thick, and has so much meat in it, that I have to add 2 quarts of
> water to it when I make soup!  I'll enjoy some good eating on the cold
> winter days that are coming - all thanks to taking a little time to cook
> the carcass of the Thanksgiving bird!
> 
> Soup anyone?
> 
> Russ
> 
> 
> -- 
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> 
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