el peregringo

Here in Spain, Thanksgiving doesn’t exit–naturally. It was a fairly nostalgic day for me, all in all. The main meal today (called “the food”) was fajitas (that in and of itself was strange since they’re virtually unknown here, and the only reason they’re occasionally eaten here in this house is because the family cook, Cati, came to visit us in the US when Amalia was born, and I cooked them for dinner one day. Cati loved them and brought the idea back here. Her variation included sweet corn kernels and wild mushrooms!).

Since I didn’t get any turkey of my own today, I was very happy to read Bill Bumgartner’s story about harvesting a turkey. While I’ve never been there for the plucking of my own turkey, in Vermont I’ve always purchased fresh turkeys from local farmers.

As a kid, I used to help my grandfather with the chicken harvest. This was a bit more “invasive” than Bill’s experience with the turkey. Instead of quietly bleeding out the turkey by cutting the juglar, we used to just chop off their heads. My grandfather had quite the interesting variation on this, however… He felt it was too slow to catch a single bird, place it’s neck on the chopping block, and chop. Instead, he walked into the mass of birds, grabbed one in each hand by the head, and with a quick swing and a twist, wripped two heads off at once….

Happy Turkey day!