The Turkey Conspiracy

[figmo]

Every year on the fourth Thursday in November we celebrate a holiday in the US called "Thanksgiving." For reasons I have yet to understand, every year millions of people eagerly anticipate a meal they eat only once a year. The centerpiece is a huge bird called "turkey."

Turkey is vile, folks. Try tasting it with a blindfold on. There's a reason they call it "fowl," and it's not just because it's gallanaceous. That stuff tastes awful. Despite this, folks gobble up turkey -- pun intended -- in massive quantities on that day.

Why do folks like it so much? I can only guess it's because they've been told they like it to the point where they've been brainwashed. You know how, when your mother wanted you to eat something awful tasting, she'd tell you "You like it" to convince you to down it? I figure after enough years of being brainwashed, folks start to think they like it. Heck, I wish I liked turkey, but I don't. I never have. The bird has an icky taste to it. I don't know how to describe it other than to say chicken doesn't have that taste, but ostrich has an amplified version of the flavor I so dislike in turkey.

Anyhow, I figure all these other folks were brainwashed by their parents, who were brainwashed by their parents, and so forth to the point where we've bred a race of people who are easy to convince they like turkey. I can believe there is a small number of folks who really like it, just as there are people who like the smell of skunk. Nonetheless, I rather dislike this day because I get subjected to The Turkey Conspiracy.

Over a month before The Day, ads start popping up telling me about "golden brown, juicy turkey." I have never seen a turkey fitting that description. A few are brown; most are beige to tan. To get them to be "juicy" you have to go through great contortions.

Why on earth, then do people so eagerly look forward to this dinner of turkey combined with really weird foods we don't eat the rest of the year? If the Thanksgiving dinner was truly that wonderful, we'd eat it every week -- but we don't. Where did someone get the idea of cranberry gelatin in a can, slicing it, and serving it on meat? How did "Jell-o" get the name "sauce," anyway? Then there's this crazed concept of stuffing the bird with a bread mixture. Why put stuff in the bird when it takes uncomfortably long to cook as it is? Obviously the concept flies (the turkey doesn't), because the Stove-Top Stuffing folks have been making a mint on it for years.

As for the rest of the meal, sweet potatoes are sweet enough by themselves. Why add even more sugar to them? Mashed potatoes are another ucky food; they taste okay, but their texture isn't much off from library paste. Then there's string beans. Okay, I'm allergic to them anyway, so the point is moot.

Then there's dessert. Who would ever have thought of taking a vegetable -- a squash -- and making a pie out of it? Pumpkin pie is okay, but it's weird stuff. The concept is up there with tapioca and durian in the "who'd have thought to call this "food" category.

Despite my dislike for nearly the whole meal, I'm stuck going to my boyfriends' parents' Thanksgiving dinner. They have been totally brainwashed into thinking they like and must eat this meal. I, however, have my brain intact and will grit my teeth, slipping any turkey dumped on my plate to the dog, who'll eat almost anything.

Comments

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Why is it that the response to "I don't like X food" is always "*I* like it/you should try it X way/you're not cooking it right/my mother's..." Maybe there's just a flavor to turkey that *you don't like*; from your discussion of turkey and ostrich, I think that must be the case. I'm sorry that you felt compelled to choke down the Traditional Thanksgiving Meal. I hope you got a chance to go out for something spicy and yummy soon afterwards.

Besides, if you don't like turkey that means more for me. *wink*
*grin*

*huggles*,
A

[cleverthylacine]

Because people are proselytizing idiots? At least a lot of them are. They want everyone to have the same religion/food tastes/sexual habits as themselves, or their tiny little brains go 'tilt'. I don't get it either.

[figmo.livejournal.com]

Me three.

I grew up in a household where everyone had distinctly different tastes in food and other stuff. In retrospect it must've been a nightmare for my mother to cook for the four of us. As it is, my brother and I seem to have opposite tastes in food, and it gets rather annoying when I'm visiting and she mixes us up, as I immensely dislike most of his favorite foods and vice-versa.

[figmo.livejournal.com]

Warren took so long to finish work on his car that by the time we got to his folks' house they'd already eaten, thus freeing me from having to do so. I instead ate a piroshki I had in the freezer and enjoyed it much more.

[bardiclug.livejournal.com]

I believe in this case it is because the original statement was "I don't like X, and if you DO like it, it's because you're brainwashed" or (one would assume) otherwise less-able.

[figmo.livejournal.com]

I never understood how so many people could go ga-ga over a food I have never ever ever liked even a teensy tiny bit. I would see people who wouldn't eat anything remotely similar to it eagerly anticipate it as I was growing up, and given the nature of the way I was brought up, I could only believe that a lot of them had to have been brainwashed into thinking they liked this food.

Now, obviously, there are folks who actually do like turkey et al (such as you and pafuts, and that's fine. I accept that, but I'm still convinced most folks who gush over the traditional Thanksgiving dinner have been brainwashed into thinking they like it.