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Thursday, November 25, 2010

ABOUT THOSE GIBLETS

Happy Thanksgiving !!!!

I must confess to being a lover of the giblets - the parts thrown away by so many cooks (boohoo).

I love the giblets so much that even though I bought a prepared dinner, I picked up some giblets to cook on the side, and thy are now in the slow-cooker... along with several lovely turkey necks... another favorite part!

And then, for some strange reason, I decided to research giblets – I am, after all, a professor! Here are a few interesting things I discovered:

The word "giblets" comes from Middle English, and originally meant a "game stew".

Giblets are described as the "edible offal" of a poultry carcass - - eeeew that sounds awful.

Now, a special word about that gizzard – the gizzard is the grinder for a bird, who has no teeth. When I was a child, we slaughtered our own chickens, and cleaning the gizzard was a mystery – you cut it open, and in there were stones, trash, all sorts of stuff the bird had picked up! The stones and sand help grind up the food... an amazing little body part.

The giblets in that little bag probably came from a DIFFERENT turkey... makes me think about some medieval torture – having the innards put in another body!

The color of the liver is influenced by what the bird last ate.Green livers are filled with bile, and are usually discarded in production at the slaughter plant.

"wog" means "without giblets" in the turkey trade!

If you accidentally leave them in the bag and cook the turkey – it's ok, they just need some salt!!

Happy Day - Kate


1 comment:

BillieBee (billiemick) said...

I do cook the giblets and chop some of whatever that stuff up for the gravy.........grin.

Happy Thanksgiving

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