The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1878-12-26

How to Carve q Holiday Turkey.
IT makes no difference whether you
buy turkey, goose, duck or chicken
the result will be the same. In other
words, these remarks will be so shaped
as to apply to all manner of fowl hav-
ing wings.
1t is better to buy the fowl and pay
for it, but this advice is not intended to
prejudice any one from obtaining his
chickens in the usual manner. Having
secured the fowl and baked or roasted
it, it becomes the duty of the head of
the family to prepare it for eating.
Some people use forty-penny nails to
spike the chicken down to plank, and
then do the carving with q buck-saw,
but there are otheE and more conve-
nient ways. Place the fowl on the
kitchen table. Attach a chain to eth
or leg, and make fast to the legs of the
table, or to eyebolts driven into the
wall. A third chain should pass from
the neck of the fowl to the opposite
end of the table. The victim is then in
that condition commonly known as
"where he can't wriggle." If ropes
are used instead of chains, they should
not be less than an inch in diameter
and of the best hemp.
1t is now a question of how you want
the fowl carved. If company is ex-
pected to dinner it should be carved in
way to leave the fowl to the family
and the bones to the company. If it is
for the family alone the wishbone
should be given to the baby, while the
head of the family should take the neck
and be thankful that he has been spared
to live another year. A fowl carves
up like clock-work if one only knows
where to begin. As every man has his
weak point, so hath q fowl, and there
is no use spending over half an hour
looking for it when the balance of din
ner is waiting. Some men spit on
their hands before picking up the carv-
ing tools. They might as well spit on
the fowl. II carved with a knife, but
little preparation is needed. The
carver should remove coat and vest
and secure firm grasp for his feet,
and muscle and faith should do the
rest. There are carvcrs who seem to
imagine that if they can get under q
fowls wing the question IS as good as
settled-for the fowl. Such carvers
have not studied anatomy, either
human or animal. You might as
well expect to stop woman's
tongue by breaking one of her
fingers. Nearly all the fowls have
about sixty different bones in their
makeup, and you have doubtless seen
many which appeared to be all bone.
These sixty bones are the brick-work, as
it were, for the remainder of the fowl
to be erected on, and Nature makes no
mistakes. If you strike the right bone
in carving, the whole brick-work gives
way in a heap and the carving is the
work of only five minutes. If you
don't, you may saw away and jump up
and down and blast the man who sold
it to you as long as the table can stand
up under it. The man who takes an
AK to dissect a well-cooked fowl is re-
sorting to brute force needlessly, and
instances have been known where the
Ak has slipped from a fond fathers
grasp and killed a son just returned
from Yale College, polished boxer
and oarsman. II the fowl has been fed
on hOop-iron, buckshot and army over
coats, Ratchet will still answer all
purposes. A man who will pull up his
sleeves and deliberately stab baked
goose to the heart deserves the con-
tempt of every human being who
doesn't 60 fishing on Sunday, and he
will receive it, too.
The fowl should be approached kind
ly and without any outward evidences
of trepidation, but a resort to undue
violence is to be discouraged and
frowned upon by alllovers of fair play.
The vulnerable part of q rhinoceros is
under the fore leg, but it does not nee
essarily follow that chicken should
be attacked there. On the contrary,
the experienced carver will avoid that
locality altogether and begin just be-
low the breastbone. Anguish some
times fills the breast of a human being,
but it is stuffing which fills the breasts
of fowls, and if rightly prepared it
will not obstruct the free use of the
knife any more than 30 much saw-dust
would. Having thrust the knife in be-
low the breast-bone, seize the left leg
in your left hand, give pull and a
sort of an agitated yank at the same
moment, and the starboard bulwarks
of the fowl ought to fall right over in a
body, leaving the carver to simply di-
vide up the sections into convenient
pieces. This ought to happen. If it
does not, the saw and Ratchet can be
used, or the fowl can be blown up
with small but effective cartridges OF
giant powder. The family which pre-
fers oysters to fowl for Thanksgiving
dinner is not only level-headed, but
will need no carver and have no rea-
sons why darkness should settle down
over table upside down. and family
fight going on in every room in the
house.-Detrou Free Press.