The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1911-12-23

The following description, taken
from the Saturday Evening Post, OF
an old fashioned Christmas turkey, as
prepared and eaten in the days when
we were all younger than We are now,
is the best of its kind we have seen
this evening. 1t will make your mouth
water to read It:
But there was a kind Of a turkey
that they used to serve in those parts
on high state occasions. 1t was
turkey that in his younger days rang
ed wild in the woods and ate the
mast. At the frosted coming of the
fall they penned him up and fed him
grain to put an edge of fat on his
lean; and then fate descended upon
him and he died the ordained death of
his kind. But, oh! the glorious reap
pearance when he reached the table.
You sat with weapons paised and
ready-a knife in the right hand, a
fork in the left and spoon handy
and looked upon him and watered at
the mouth until you had riparian
rights.
His breast had the vast brown full
ness that you see in pictures of old
Flemish friars. His legs were like
rounded columns and unadorned,
per frills; and his tail was half as big
as your hand and protruded grandly.
like the rudder of a treasure ship, and
had ianges Of sizzled richness on it.
Here was no pindling fowl that had
taken the veil and lived the cloistered
life; here was no withdrawn and
trained-down crOss-cOuntry turkey
but a lusty giant of a bird that would
have been a casSOwary, probably, or
an emu, if he had lived, his bosom a
white mountain of lusciousness, his in
terror a Golconda and not a Go1gotha
At the touch of the steel his skin
crink1ed delicately and fell away; his
tissues faxed off in tender strips: and
from him arose a bouquet of smells
more varied and more delectable than
anything ever turned out by the justly
celebrated Islands of Spice 1t was a
sin to cut him up and a crime to leave
him be-
He had not been stuffed by a tax
idermist or a curio collector, but by q
master hand of one Of those natural
born home cooks-stuffed with corn.
bread dressing that had oysters OIL
chestnuts or pecanS stirred into it I'm.
til it was a veritable mine of good
ness. and this stuffing has caught III
ana retained all OF the uoIeclaDif
dripping and essences of his being
and his flesh had the SAVIOR of the
things upon which he had lived-tht
sweet acorns and beechnuts of the
woods. the buttery COOLERS of the
plowed burrows, the shattered corn o.
the horse yard.
Nor was he a turkey to be eaten by
the mere slice. At least, nobody ever
did eat him that way-you ate him b,
rods. poles and perches, by township!
and by sections-ate him from hi
neck to his hooks and back again
from his throat latch to his crupper
from center to circumference, ant
from pit to dome, finding something
better all the time: and when hi
frame was mainly denuded and loom
ed upon the platter like scaffoldng
you dug into his cadaver and fount
there small hidden joys and titbits
You ate until the pressure of you
waistband stopped your watch AM
your vest flew open like an engine
house door and your stomach wa
pushing you over on your back an,
sitting upon you, and then you hal
closed your eyes and dreamed of cold
sliced turkey for supper, turkey has
for breakfast the next morning an
turkey soup made of the bones of hf
carcass later on. For each state 0
that turkey would be greater thai
the last.