Another Bite™

First of all, we should define our terms. The conventional way of cooking a turkey or other fowl is to lay the bird on its back so that the breast is on top and the legs point up, tied at the "ankle." Most cooks would call this "right-side up." This is somewhat confusing, because a turkey does not walk around with its feet in the air. What is "right-side up" to a cook is "upside down" to the living turkey.

For the purpose of this question, however, we will define right-side up as "breast on top." When a turkey is roasted this way, the delicate white meat runs the risk of drying out, even with conscientious basting. The drumsticks can get overdone and tough. The presentation looks beautiful, but the bird can be disappointing to eat.

We would like to make a case for cooking the bird breast down, with the legs tucked under, as if the bird were just sitting there in your roasting pan. Experimenting with this method for several years has led us to prefer it, because the white meat stays moist and the bird is more evenly roasted. The hard part comes when you take the bird out of the roasting pan and flip it over onto the platter. (Don’t try to be a hero and do this alone, especially if your turkey is a 20-pounder or more.)

What is your experience? Please let us know! Write to us about this or other kitchen controversies at foodfights@digitalhearth.com.

Last Bite

In Praise of Pie Plates

From my collection of pie plates, you’d think I would be an excellent pie maker. Actually, I’m not. For consistently good pie, flaky pastry is the key, and I’ve always had mixed results in the crust department. Instead, I use my pie plates for baking apple crisps in the winter, mixed berry and peach crumbles in the summer, cornbread to go with chili in the fall; they shine as fruit bowls, cookie servers, and most recently, Halloween candy holders.

I think what I really love is the pie plates themselves. I have glass, stoneware, ironstone, enameled steel, and tin pie plates, and I especially love one that has a cow painted on it. (It’s currently holding a bunch of bananas.) I search for old ones at antique shops and rummage sales, new ones in pottery shops. Some of the old ones have baked-on stains from fruit juices that bubbled over. I love to give new pie plates as wedding presents, just to encourage a love for home and the kind of meals that end in a big piece of pie.

I have a heavy steel pie plate with a perforated bottom, stamped "New England Table Talk Flaky Crust Pie, 5¢ deposit." I found it at a church rummage sale for fifty cents. I wonder who bought that pie but didn’t get her five cents back. Maybe, like me, she just liked pie plates.