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Wednesday, November 24, 1999
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Butterball's home economists learn who the real turkeys are around Thanksgiving
By Heidi Knapp Rinella
Review-Journal
The woman whose Chihuahua got stuck in the cavity of her uncooked turkey will live on in infamy at the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line.
"We really did get that call," said Carol Miller, a home economist and supervisor at the talk line. "It sounds almost fabricated. I've sat next to the woman who took that call and she swears it's true."
The story goes like this: The caller had the turkey on her kitchen counter. Somehow, the little dog got up on the counter, crawled into the turkey and got stuck. She couldn't get him out and called the talk line in a panic.
"I guess he was investigating -- you know little creatures," Miller said. "We've had kitties who did that. The little fella got in and couldn't get out."
The woman tried grabbing. She tried shaking. Then she tried calling. The home economist told her to make a few snips here and there around the turkey's cavity, and -- voilˆ! Fido was free.
"That one always piques everyone's interest," Miller said.
But it's not, by a long shot, the only funny story to come from talk-line callers. What turkeys we mortals be, and Butterball's home economists know it.
"We've had quite a few over the years," Miller said. "People are great, but sometimes they just kind of get mixed up with the terminology when they talk to us. They will call giblets `goblets' and things like that."
"Some people are a little bit clueless about cooking," she said. "They want to do this traditional Thanksgiving meal the way Mom did it, but they don't do any cooking throughout the year. They'll say, `Your directions say to roast the turkey, but my oven says only bake or broil; how do I set it?' "
Last year, Miller said, a son called to say he and his father were cleaning out the family freezer.
"They found a turkey from 1969," Miller said. "The dad wanted to give it a go and cook the turkey and see what it was like, and the son didn't think that was a good idea."
Theoretically, Miller said, as long as the turkey had remained frozen the entire time, it was safe from bacteria.
"But I think it would be a little tough, don't you?" Miller asked.
That was rhetorical.
And, she added, "in the same freezer, they had snowballs from every snowstorm that had ever occurred in Alabama."
Miller said they've been asked if one of the turkey's legs is dark meat and the other white.
"I think that would be a good idea, but I don't think God made it that way," she said.
Other people call about problems that stem from a lack of storage space. A woman in Colorado had dug an igloo for her turkey in her back yard and wanted to know if that was OK. Another caller put a turkey on the back porch to thaw.
"Unfortunately, on Thanksgiving morning, they found the raccoons had had an early Thanksgiving feast," she said. "Thank goodness for fresh turkeys" -- and stores that are open on Thanksgiving morning.
This is the talk line's 19th year; Miller's been on staff 16 years. Sometimes, she said, callers have tips as well as questions -- such as the woman who called to say that when transporting a turkey on the front seat of a car one should be sure to belt it in, because hers had slid off after a quick stop and broken her toe.
Then there was the new father who suggested putting a baby diaper on the turkey to hold the basting liquid and help brown the skin.
"He was going to give us turkey experts a little tip," Miller said.
Most turkey traumas, Miller said, occur on Thanksgiving Day. The entire staff of 48 home economists is on duty that day to handle the 7,000 to 8,000 calls the talk line will receive, of an average total of 170,000 during the holiday season.
One of the most common questions, Miller said, involves the giblets; plenty of people forget to take them out, roast the turkey with the giblets in the cavity and then wonder if that's a problem. In the case of Butterball turkeys, she said, the giblet bag is designed so that it can be safely cooked inside the turkey. She suggests surreptitiously removing the bag during carving.
Also, she said, "people have a tendency to leave things in the turkey." Some, she said, are squeamish about reaching into the cavity and use a rubber glove or rag, which they somehow forget to remove. Occasionally, she said, a cook will lose an acrylic nail in a turkey; the talk line will tell them to call the local poison-control center, or "throw the stuffing out and get some Stove Top or something like that," Miller said.
And then, she said, there are those men who think a romantic way to propose would be to stuff the diamond ring inside the turkey.
"A toothless bride? I'm not sure that's a good idea," Miller said. "Maybe tying it on a drumstick or something is a better idea."
One of the most fun aspects of working the talk line, she said, is that the home economists often get a picture of what's going on in America's homes.
"There are tons of stories," she said.
Such as the woman who called to find out how to tell if her turkey was done.
"She proceeded to tell our home economist that she had gotten mad at her boyfriend, had thrown all his stuff out and called a locksmith to have her locks changed, " Miller said.
"And was having Thanksgiving dinner with the locksmith."
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