Thanksgiving 2005

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The second annual thanksgiving dinner (ie, more food than you can fit in one room, litterally) will be held the saturday before thanksgiving. All members of the slugfest community invited, including but not limited to: current residents, past residents, future residents, if you can get here, and people who don't mind doing dishes.

Thanksgiving Dinner, Saturday November 19, 5:00 PM

Massive amounts of food.
fish chowing down.

The current menu for this year's Thanksgiving Feed along with chefs:

Deep Fried Turkey James, Eric, Fish
Mashed Potatoes Jenn (+..?)
Sweet Potatoes David
Roast Potatoes Andrew
Boiled Potatoes for Eric    
Corn Clare
Stuffing Amy, Kristen
Gravy Angela
Pie Gina--apple, apple/strawberry, apple/cranberry
Alison--shoofly, 2 pumpkin.
Liz!--chocolate and lemon meringue
Green Beans Clare
Carrots Karen
Peas Karen
Fresh Bread Amy + ...? I'll make it the night before or wicked early that morning, if people are okay with that?
Corn Bread Anna
Biscuits (w/ gravy?)
Cranberry Sauce Emily
Carmelized Pearl Onions Andrew (really easy to make, taste very good.)
Apple Cider Angela
Applesauce Andrew
Ice Cream
etc.

If you're interested in cooking, or seeing something on the menu, feel free to volunteer yourself, or contact James.

We also need people to help:

Buy food Edwin Chen
Chieu
Set up Stepka—turkey carving (yes, I actually know how, and was the only one who knew how last year, but I'm willing to teach people)
Clean up Stepka—dishes
Jehan
Brown
Chieu
Puzzle; Aaron—superfluous

History

The tradition of giving thanks for the fruit of the harvest (and eating in good company to celebrate it) comes from the time of the first settlers to America. The first celebration, according to the Wikipedia Thanksgiving article, was in 1578.

James Houghton says:

    I expect the long journey from England had left them quite hungry.  
As I hail from England myself, I understand.

    The tradition of Frying Turkey's at thanksgiving, however, I have no 
idea about. Its something that my family always used to do, and was a 
great opportunity for neighbors to get together and have a good time. In 
Texas, this time of year, it is just the right temperature outside to 
sit around a hot turkey fryer and drink cold beer.  So, for as long as i 
can remember, the night before thanksgiving, there would always be a 
gathering of neighbors, the men and boys in the garage or on the back 
porch, the womenfolk in the kitchen, and we'd fry 6-8 turkeys, and eat 
them the next day. well, most of them. Sorta like the 21st century 
equivalent to a barn raising, except without the square dancing 
afterwards. And not half as much work.

    The tradition of frying turkeys for thanksgiving on Fourth East 
started last year. Last year's feast was an great success, featuring 
massive ammounts of food, lots of crusty alums, and much general revelry.

Mechanics

The guys deep fry a turkey.

How do you fry a turkey?

Ingredients

  • <math>N</math> turkeys
  • 1 marinading syringe
  • some cajun marinade (the only way to go)
  • 1 Turkey fryer - 5 gallon metal pot
  • 1 Tank Propane
  • 1 Long stem Thermometer
  • 1 Lighter Clicky
  • ~4 gallons of peanut oil

Preparation

  1. The night before you fry: clean up the turkey, take all the crap out from inside it (make sure its thawed out real good) and dry it off.
  2. Also the night before you fry: inject the Delishus Cajun Marinade into the breast, and legs, in several places. make few small holes, penetrating in multiple directions in each hole, and be liberal with the marinade.
  3. Put all that goodness in the fridge, so the marinade has time to permeate and tasteyify the meat.
  4. Give the gibblets to someone who knows how to make gravy.

Fryin

  1. set up your turkey fryer somewhere stable, outside, and preferably on something that if it gets covered in oil, the womenfolk wont be upset.
  2. connect the propane tank. if you dont know how, ask your cousin. as a last resort, read the man-u -al. get it right though, cause you dont wanna spend thanksgiving in the "just blew himself up" clinic.
  3. put the pot on, and put some oil in it. to figgure out how much oil you need, take the weight of your turkey, and devide by the density of the turkey (~density of water ~ 8lbs/gallon) and thats how much oil you need to subtract from the oil that the pot holds without the turkey in it. (ie. if i have a 5 gallon pot (which actually holds 5 gallons with some room left over) and a 16 lb turkey, I want to put 3 gallons of oil in it. the pot that is, i dont think the turkey could hold 3 gallons.)
  4. turn on the gas, and light it. heat the oil up to ~350 degrees. no more. if it gets too hot, the oil could catch fire and then you'd be back to the clinic, stupid.
  5. it takes a good half hour to get up to temprature.
  6. Lower in y'alls turkey real slow and easylike, so's you dont splash nobody.
  7. maintain the right temperature, cause it goes all over the place when you put the bird in.
  8. fry it for ~ 3 minutes per pound of turkey, (for exact times, use newton's law of cooling, along with the mass of the bird and specific heat of oil in a constant pressure process, dont forget to account for the cold beer in close proximity) or just wait till its nice and goldeny brown. if it floats, pull it out.
  9. do a bunch more turkeys.
  10. when youre done, let it all get nice and cool before you mess with cleaning up. takes a couple hours.

Physics

  • When you fry a turkey, the turkey enters the freakin' hot oil so fast that the oil seals the outside of the turkey skin, so no oil gets in. This also means that all the yummy juices can't come out, and thusly, the turkey is moist, and rich and oh, so delishus.
  • Also, when propane expands as it leaves the tank, it cools, and the tank can become quite cold. This is a problem, because if it gets too cold, the propane dosent vaporize. A neat solution, apparently (though i've never tried it) is to put the tank in a bucket of water and drinks, which need to be chilled anyways.

Poetry

Thanksgiving Dinner
With Fourth East

Twas the Saturday before thanksgiving and all through the hall
The Slugs were each cooking - and having a ball.
The Table was laden with all sorts of pies, 
And Sparkling Cider made sparkling eyes,
 
The kitchen was busy, with peas on the hob
And carrots, and cobbler, and corn on the cob
With bread from the oven, Homemade of course,
And green beans to go with the cranberry sauce

Potatoes there were, sweet, mashed, even roasted
Baked apples, and stuffing (just perfectly toasted)
And maybe – if lucky, some fresh lemonade
To glitter and garnish the grand food parade

And, of course, the turkeys – like ducks in a row
Fried one at a time, outside in the snow.
So juicy, so moist and so tenderly basted
To each be carved up, not a single bite wasted.

So join with slug brothers and slug sisters all
For a family meal on EC’s greatest hall.
19th of November, 7 o’clock, or around
It’s Thanksgiving Dinner in Goodale lounge!