And then I wrote...

by Dick Schilling, Editor Emeritus

...that many words have different meanings, some several.
I thought about that Thanksgiving Day as I prepared my bone-in turkey breast. It consists, of course, of all white meat. Growing up, I preferred the white meat of the turkey, or for that matter the chickens we used to raise and the pheasants we used to hunt. I guess I thought I had discriminating taste. Is discrimination bad? Well, you have to go to the last meaning of the word discriminate in my Webster's to find that meaning. Otherwise it means to distinguish based on good judgment.
Why did I prefer white meat? I think because it presents a field clear of obstacles, such as bones. And not just the major bones.
The roosters we used to raise and the pheasants and grouse we shot had what we called "spring" bones. Those were the softer, easier bent, thin leg bones which those flying birds used to launch themselves into the air.
For the past few years, I have frequently prepared what are sold as chicken hind quarters, basically the thigh and leg of the chicken. And I find I prefer that "dark" meat. I put dark in parens there because it really isn't as dark as I remember from my youth, and the spring bones seem to have all but disappeared.
I suspect that is because commercially raised birds now are often cage raised, and so do not develop flight aids. Our chickens were pen raised, inside a large fenced-in area built around some volunteer plum trees. The chickens used to love to fly to roost on a tree branch. To avoid that, we sawed off lower branches and clipped the ends of "flight feathers" so they got less lift. But they would fly from one end of the fence to the other, sometimes it seemed just for fun. They had dirt in which to scratch for bugs, worms and nightcrawlers which showed up after rains, and ripe plums to eat in season. And so, dark meat.
Legs of commercially raised turkeys seem to have retained some vestige of those spring bones, although those turkeys can't fly, as we learned on the old TV series WKRP.
A bone-in turkey breast weighs probably seven or eight pounds. I will get many meals of cold turkey, one of my favorite foods, from frozen packages between now and Christmas. And sandwiches.
And the bone and meat which was left on it boiled in a pot for a while and later went into several frozen servings of turkey and noodle soup.
In addition to being thankful that I learned to cook, this season I am thankful for the "black Friday" success of my alma mater's football team. Waukon's own Parker Hesse and his teammates will have a holiday season football game and some free time in a nice warm southern city as a reward.
Maybe even the Rose Bowl, which would bring back memories of past Iowa football success.