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Mama and my older brother and sister
thanking God for the Thanksgiving dinner
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Thanksgiving morning. In our house, it consisted of a quick breakfast and watching the Macy Thanksgiving Day Parade on television. Earlier in my life, it also involved going to a local High School Turkey game at Washington-Lee High School in Arlington, Virginia. In the 1960s my alma mater was named the second-best High School in the nation! I suspect it because it offered the men in our city something to do while Moms across the county cooked those Thanksgiving birds.
Our Thanksgiving began the day before with Dad making the traditional chili dinner and Mom chopping up all of her stuffing vegetables and tearing up the day-old bread she had bought earlier in the week. Dad also began the process of making the bird. Because we had at least a twenty-pounder, Dad opted to steam it the night before and simmer the giblets most of the evening. It made our house smell like Thanksgiving, even if it wasn't ready.
There's a great debate over whether or not to stuff your bird before cooking it. Some people believe that it shouldn't be done because it inhibits the cooking time on your bird but that's not so. The reason for the to stuff or not to stuff debate comes from the fact that most people don't cook their bird long enough to cook the stuffing through to temperature (165 degrees). And many people don't have a thermometer that allows them to check the stuffing internally.
Most chefs recommend cooking the bird and stuffing separately and if you want the stuffing in the body cavity for presentation, stuff it in right before serving. But there's room to stuff and cook. Just make sure you put the stuffing in right before you cook it. What Dad did was steam the bird and then put the stuffing in right before finishing it off in the oven.
