Thompson Turkey: There's Some Life In The Old Bird Yet

At long last the turkey of all turkeys comes out of his closet and screams for respectability. Maybe, being a turkey, he just gobbles for public acceptance.

You know what I am talking about. None other than the Thompson Turkey, that seasonal bird of paradise, the recipe of which, when copied in this column, got me a day off during festive holidays.

Some background on this bird. I first stumbled onto the Thompson Turkey in 1962. This was before the Julia Child revolution in gourmet home cooking, before coriander, cumin and oregano became commonplace in Seattle kitchens.

The Thompson Turkey, a hellishly complex creation, was first given to us by Morton Thompson, a gifted columnist of the 1930s.

When I first unloaded this recipe on a helpless Seattle citizenry, the reaction was incendiary.

"You ruined our Thanksgiving!" people yelled into the phone.

Similar comments, some of them life-threatening, ensued.

The source of this anger was that people got tired of cooking turkey in the conventional way. They wanted something more exotic - and they got more than they bargained for with Mr. Thompson's bird.

In those days you had to hunt all over town for the ingredients. The bird was complicated by the fact that it is roasted in a kind of paste that is peeled off later.

Family squabbles were common. Marital fights erupted. People got drunk on kitchen wine putting the Thompson Turkey together.

So for a few years, the Thompson Turkey recipe became kind of a civic plague. But as time went on, the rage and insults gradually subsided.

What happened, of course, is that Julia Child came along. So did James Beard. Craig Claiborne, The New York Times food critic, became a must-read.

In short, America (meaning Seattle as well) got heavily into gourmet cooking.

The result is that the Thompson Turkey, while no slam-dunk even today, became easier to assemble and master. Imprecations turned to compliments. Some people even slavered their gratitude over the phone.

I became some kind of cult hero with the Thompson Turkey. Each November people asked for copies of the recipe. It was wonderful.

But over 30-some years, the act got tiresome. One editor literally banned the Thompson Turkey from his pages.

In a way, the Thompson Turkey kind of went into the closet, or the attic.

Once a friend asked me, "You stopped running that silly recipe. Honestly now, did you ever do any good with it?"

The answer was no - not until now.

You see, there is going to be a mass cooking of the Thompson Turkey this Thursday. At the Pike Place Market.

Several cooks, each far more skilled than I, will roast quite a few of these exalted birds. Free recipes will be handed out.

Such luminaries of cooking as Joe Canavan, the world-class chili champ, will be on hand. So will Shirley Collins, owner of Sur La Table; Kaspar Donier, billed as "the best saucier in Seattle"; and famed restaurant reviewer and radio commentator John Hinterberger.

In other words, the Thompson Turkey will be the star of a show lasting from 11 a.m. until far into the evening.

All during the day, sample plates of Thompson Turkey will be offered for $10 a person.

After 6 p.m., Thompson dinners (with wine) will be offered at $25.

This celebratory eat fest will take place at the South Arcade of the Pike Place Market.

It's a fund-raiser for Seattle Cares, a program that supplies food and lodging for the city's displaced families and individuals.

So at last the Thompson Turkey will do some good - more good than getting a lazy columnist a day off each year. I can tell you that the Thompson Turkey, done by experts, is a gem.

As Thompson once wrote about this exquisite holiday fowl:

"The meat beneath (the pastry shell) will be wet, juice will spurt from it in tiny fountains high as the handle of a fork plunged into it. You do not have to be a carver to eat this turkey. Speak harshly to it and it will fall apart."

Emmett Watson's column appears Monday and Friday in the Local News section of The Times.