to be dark,
gamy, and
stringy.
Lucky then,
that you’d
have to go
out of your
way to find
one.Q: What about turkeys? How big a bird should I get?
Plan on about 1 pound of raw turkey per person, which
translates to around half a pound of meat. In terms of flavor
and ease of preparation, I find that the best birds are around
10 to 12 pounds, or even smaller. Much bigger, and they
become very difficult to cook evenly. Large birds also take
an inordinately long time, are difficult to transfer to and
from the oven (not to mention trying to flip them), take up
more oven space, and are more prone to drying out—all bad
things when you’ve also got to deal with a houseful of
family members, and Junior’s just stolen Gramps’s dentures
and dropped them in Aunt Mabel’s wine.
If you’ve got many mouths to feed, unless there’s
absolutely no way to get ’em in the oven, it’s always a better
idea to go with two smaller birds than one large one.