THE TURKEY HEN.
“There must be two to eat a truffled turkey,” said a gastronomist of the 18th century, to one of his friends—a noted gourmand—who had just come to pay him a visit. “Two!” replied the visitor, with a smile of sensuality. “Yes, two,” answered the first; “I never do otherwise: for instance, I have a turkey to-day, and of course we must be two.” The friend, looking earnestly at the other, said: “You, and who else?” “Why,” answered the gastronomist, “I and the turkey.”
In Greece, more than one stomach would have been capable of challenging nobly the voracity of this modern polyphagus: witness the insatiable greediness of the well-known glutton who complained that nature ought to have given him a neck as long as the stork, that he might enjoy for a longer period his eating and drinking.[XVII_102]
But for a long time the Greeks were quite ignorant of the culinary value of the turkey; it was looked upon as an uncommon curiosity, and not condemned to the spit. Sophocles, the first who spoke of it, pretended that those marvellous birds came purposely from some distant climate beyond the Indies, to bewail the death of Meleager, who took possession of the throne of Macedonia (279 years B.C.), and who was soon driven from it.[XVII_103] This Prince, it is reported, carried them away from barbarous regions, that they might enjoy the charms of Greek civilization; and hence could there be anything more natural than to find those compassionate volatiles shedding tears for their benefactor, in one of Sophocles’ tragedies? They have been called since, Meleagrides, and this name perpetuated “misfortune, favour, and gratitude.”
Aristotle hardly supplies us with any details upon turkey hens: he merely says that their eggs are distinguished by little specks from those of the common hens, which are white;[XVII_104] but Clytus of Miletus, his disciple, gives an exact description of them, by which no mistake can be made.[XVII_105]
Egypt also possessed some of these birds; but there they were still more rare than in Greece, and formed one of the principal ornaments in the triumphal pomp of Ptolemy Philadelphus, when he entered Alexandria. Large cages, containing meleagrides, were carried before the monarch, and on that day the people knew not which to admire most—the prince or the turkey.[XVII_106]
They were introduced into Rome about the year 115 before our era; but, for a long time, they were objects of uncommon curiosity: and Varro, the first of the Latins who speaks of them, confounds these birds with the guinea hens, or hens of Numidia.[XVII_107]
A century later, turkeys greatly multiplied, and vast numbers were reared in the Roman farms. Caligula, who had the good sense to make his own apotheosis during his life-time, through fear lest it might be refused after his death, ordered a sacrifice of peacocks, guinea hens, and turkeys to be made daily before his statue.[XVII_108]
It appears, however, that the breed of turkeys soon began to diminish in Europe; very few were reared, and that only as a curiosity: in the citadel of Athens, towards the year 540 of the Christian era;[XVII_109] and in 1510, two were exhibited in Rome, which belonged to the Cardinal of Saint Clement.[XVII_110] Jacques Cœur brought some meleagrides from India, in 1450; they were the first ever seen in France, and it was not till fifty-four years afterwards that Americus Vespucius made them known to the Portuguese. In our days these ancient inhabitants of Asia or America[XVII_111] have become naturalized among us, and let us hope that the day is yet distant when they will be absentees from our farm-yards and our tables. We admire them less perhaps than Charles IX. did when a turkey was served to him for the first time,[XVII_112] but we shall always receive with cheerfulness the majestic dish upon which appears a well-fed turkey, truffled, and smoking hot.
Turkey à l’Africaine.—Roast a turkey; bruise some pepper, alisander, and benzoin; mix it with wine and garum. Pour this seasoning on the turkey, sprinkle with pepper, and serve.[XVII_113]
The historian of Provence, Bouche, will have it that the French are indebted for the turkey to King René, who died in 1480. Other writers assure us that this volatile was introduced during the reign of Francis I. by Admiral Chabert. La-Bruyère-Champier speaks of it as a recent acquisition, and Beckmann refutes those who date its existence in France previous to the 16th century. He says that this bird, which was wild in the forests of America, became domesticated in Europe.
It is also said that we owe the importation of it to the Jesuits. According to Hurtaut, it was not until about the time of Charles IX. that turkeys appeared in France.[XVII_114] It is asserted, adds this author, that at the wedding-dinner of that Prince the first turkey was served, and that it was admired as a very extraordinary thing. The English tasted this new dish in 1525, the fifteenth year of the reign of Henry VIII.
To fatten turkeys—every morning, for a month, give them mashed potatoes, mixed with buck-wheat flour, Indian corn, barley, or beans; a paste is made of it which they are left to eat as they please. Every evening what remains must be taken away. One month after, you add to this food, when they go to roost, half a dozen balls composed of barley floor, which they are made to swallow for eight days successively; at the end of that time turkeys, thus fed, become excessively fat, delicious, and weigh from twenty to twenty-five pounds.
In Provence, walnuts are given to them whole, which they are compelled to swallow by slipping them one by one with the hand along the neck until they have all past the œsophagus; they begin with one walnut, and increase by degrees to forty. This kind of food gives an oily taste to the flesh.
Turkey eggs are good boiled, and are preferred to those of hens for pastry; mixing them with the common eggs makes an omelette more delicate.
“To obtain all the advantages possible from turkeys, they must be killed at the same time as pigs; then cut the turkeys in quarters, and put them in earthen pots covered over with the fat of the pork, and by this means they may be eaten all the year round.”—Parmentier.