Long gone are the days when people cooked their Thanksgiving turkeys in the oven. Who still uses an oven, anyway?! Hello, this is the twenty-first century! I was in college when the fried turkey craze began growing in popularity, and because I was eating ninety-nine cent bags of noodles every night, I wasn’t too concerned with how the turkey was prepared; as long as I still headed back to my dorm with a Tupperware full of food. My dad on the other hand; very, very excited about taking a stab at this new craze. “Come out here!” he said as he guided me to an opening in my grandmother’s gravel driveway. “Check it out!” What I was “checking out” looked like the biggest crock-pot I’ve ever seen, on stilts, outside. I didn’t exactly share my father’s excitement, but he always enjoyed trying something new, and figuring it out on his own.
We went inside, leaving the twelve-pound turkey to bask in gallons of grease in the driveway. “This is going to be good!” he said to my cousins. The fried turkey was the topic of conversation, no one else in my family had heard of it; they asked my dad questions about the fryer and methods, and he happily answered. Three years later, when most new stations covered the craze and its disasters throughout Thanksgiving Day, I had to admit I laughed to myself, and credited my dad for being ahead of the trend. “It’s on fire,” my cousin said, almost as if he was asking a question. Everyone, huddled around the appetizers and chips, rushing to the window. At this point it had been a few hours… my dad said twenty minutes per pound, and had been checking the driveway feast quite frequently, but yes; “it” was on fire. And “it” was the grease; the grease inside the giant pot, the grease overflowing onto the gravel and the grease that had been spilled during assembling this project.
I squinted my eyes and turned my head slightly as if it was about to explode. What’s not so funny now, is that it really could have. I know it could have because years after this moment I heard of many fried turkeys that did indeed explode. But, due to everyone’s ignorance in regards to this new trend and its hazards, we all fought to hold back our giggles as my dad cursed and put the fire out. In the end, the fire and all the excitement that accompanied it resulted in one hell of a turkey, fried to perfection. We all oo’ed and ahh’ed as my dad cut through the crispy skin to reach perfectly cooked meat. And he served us all, feeling victorious (and maybe even blessed), for burning neither the turkey nor my grandmother’s house.