When my mother was a child, my grandfather and his brother, Cecil — in the Southern tradition — would actually kill the family turkey on Thanksgiving Day. Then, my grandmother — with some assistance from her four children — would perform the arduous task of preparing the recently deceased bird for dinner. For the past 50 years or so, storebought turkeys have been the staple on Thanksgiving Day. My grandmother doesn’t do much with respect to preparation: a sweet onion stuffed in the turkey cavity and a good rubdown with real butter on the turkey’s skin. The key is timing. Mema always sets her alarm for 4 a.m. Thanksgiving morning to place the big bird in the oven.
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