Personal Preferences on Cooked Turkey

A holiday set aside for giving thanks is not just an American tradition, but a global one. Numerous celebrations of thanks are celebrated around the world.– Image of a collectible “Cigarette Card” from a set on Holidays Around the World, circa 1890’s

How Great Men Eat Turkey 

Views of McKinley, Cleveland, Bryan, Depew, et al. on the Bird 

A personal friend of President-elect McKinley is authority for the statement that the major has long ago given minute instruction in regard to the preparation of his Thanksgiving turkey, and that for many years past, the order has not varied an iota. He has his turkey roasted but not stuffed, and, is quoted as saying that a chef who would stuff the noble bird is a fellow fit for “treason, strategem and spoils.” He prefers a twelve-pound fowl, very fat and well spread with butter. The pièce de résistance, however, is the garnishment, which consists of a double string of sausages, fried and served hot with the turkey. 

In this connection, the Thanksgiving preferences of a few well-known men may prove interesting. President Cleveland likes his turkey well stuffed with biscuit or cracker stufling, black with sage and pepper. He wants the bird well dressed, with skewers and ribbon bands, or strings of smilax and bunches of parsley. Ex-President Harrison likes a roasted turkey stuffed with big Indiana chestnuts. He says that in his estimation there is only one class of people who have mastered the art of properly cooking a Thanksgiving turkey and that distinction belongs to the country girls of his native state. William Jennings Bryan has, to use his own words, “a great mouth for turkey,” and likes it in any guise or disguise. It is therefore safe to say that he will do full justice to that course at Denver’s banquet next Thursday. Chauncey M. Depew can make a better after-dinner speech on Thanksgiving if his turkey is cooked in “ole Virginia.” According to the genial Chauncey, the genuine southern cook, with a knack amounting to necromancy, can spice and sweeten the fowl till ‘tis a drop of nectar fit for the gods—or the critical palate of an epicure.

Dr. T. DeWitt Talmage is cosmopolitan in his tastes, and avows that his turkey must be stuffed with small English oysters and ornamented with a “fence” of French potato strips, fried brown and crisp and served piping hot. The good doctor also dotes on Vienna bread fingers as a proper accompaniment. John R. Tanner is fond of a great big turkey—the bigger the better—well roasted and basted in the good, old-fashioned way our mothers all used to know so well. He likes the oyster stuffing, rich gravies and entrees of mashed potatoes and turnips. Cranberry sauce and pies and apple, pumpkin and mince will complete the menu. – Los Angeles Herald, 1896

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