DISH
The Bigger The Better
with Maribeth Maloney
Sing along to the tune of "The Brady Bunch" while on the verge of a tryptophan-induced coma:

Here's the story of a zany lady Who had dreamt of roasting up her first turkey She had no clue What she was doing Which became plain to see

It's the story of a man in training Forced to work on his first married holiday There were three more On duty with him And none could get away

So the lady planned Thanksgiving dinner for them It would surely turn their spirits right around Yet the group knew not what they were in for Cuz she went and cooked the turkey upside down

Upside down upside down The zany lady cooked the turkey upside down

Okay, so my skills as a lyricist need some help. But the goofiness quotient is on par with the first Thanksgiving dinner I cooked on my own.

My husband and I were newlyweds and he'd just begun a hospital residency; low man on the totem pole and on-call for the holiday. There were three even lower ranking interns who also weren't allowed to stray beyond the confines of a three block radius. I was delighted, to say the least. I had a built-in band of victims to demo my burgeoning hostessing skills on.

I was loaded with misguided enthusiasm, more concerned with the table décor and presentation than with the main event, the turkey. I had a cursory phone consultation with my mother, but her preoccupation with what to do with the neck and the giblets left me bored and disgusted. My only plan for that wet bag of nastiness was to 86 it with as little actual touching as possible. I opted for the smarty-pants route and armed with nothing more than a foil roasting pan, I heaved the bird into the pan and shoved it in the oven. I left it in there so long that it should have transmuted into a catcher's mitt. The only reason it didn't is that the concept of "roasting rack" had yet to enter my consciousness; it basically stewed in a massive pool of its own fat for hours.

Fortunately, the victims weren't watching when I attempted the carving. I knew something was terribly wrong when I heard the empty thud of bone beneath the knife. Green as I was, I thought I had some sort of mutant, breast-less Butterball on my hands. Then I thought I should check the closet for Allen Funt. After several moments of panic, I flipped it over and saw the pop-up thingamabob poking out of the oilslicked turkey breast. Total nitwit, I know. But the meal was ultimately a success, due in large part to the fact that one woman's greasy is another man's juicy.

It's not known for certain if the Pilgrims and Indians actually ate turkey at the first Thanksgiving, but if they did, at least they would have had a justifiable reason for not being able to decipher the right side up. Granted, flame cooking on a spit negates the notion of an up or down side, but the native wild variety of Meleagris gallapovas that they would have feasted on weren't nearly as well-endowed as their modern-day supermarket cousins.

The main dish domesticated strutters we know and love have been biologically altered to such an extent that their huge breasts have rendered the aerodynamics right out of them, not to mention the brains. Fortunately ignorance is bliss or otherwise they might feel a sense of loss over the fact that their progeny is the result of artificial insemination - they're too buxom to maneuver mating. Another bonus of being one pumpkin short of a pie is that they never see the ax coming. Then again, not all survive long enough to enjoy the dignity of murder. As heartwrenchingly pathetic as it is, turkeys have a fixation with rain and have been known to stare at the sky, beaks open, until they drown. I don't know about you, but that makes me want to shake the drumstick of the turkey on my table for being "less dumb" enough to have made it to the slaughterhouse.

Wild turkeys, on the other hand, are noted for their cleverness. They're native to North America and archaeological evidence suggests they date back as far as 10 million years, first inhabiting the Mexican highlands. According to the National Wild Turkey Federation, there are six million feral turkeys in existence today, located in every state of the union except Alaska. Early explorers took them from North America to Europe where the process of their domestication first began. By the mid-16th century, turkey had become a traditional item on Christmas menus in England and when the British settled in North America, they brought their domesticated variety with them. All it took was the passage of a few hundred years and the intervention of U.S. poultry science and voila - the ultimate reason to love leftovers was hatched.

According to the National Turkey Federation, some 270 million turkeys are raised each year in the United States, with North Carolina, Ohio and Minnesota being the top producers. While we consume an average of 18 pounds per person a year, turkey's popularity extends far beyond the holiday table; only 30 percent of our consumption is tied to Thanksgiving and Christmas. Its low-fat, high-protein profile distinguishes it as the healthiest among all commercially available meats, with a 3.5 ounce serving of skinless breast boasting a mere 4 grams of fat and an impressive 30 grams of protein. And although they're bred for tenderness and rapid weight gain (it takes only 75 pounds of feed to raise a 30 pound turkey), surprisingly they're all steroid-free by order of the USDA.

So was turkey eaten at that first harvest feast? The answer is a solid "maybe." What is known is that only 56 of the original 102 Mayflower Pilgrims who arrived in 1620 survived the first year to enjoy the plentiful harvest of 1621. They invited the Wampanoags who'd saved them from starvation and partied like it was 1999. While the three day celebration might have included fowl, deer, seafood, corn, pumpkin and fruit, there were no mashed potatoes or pies in sight; potatoes were feared and they'd run out of sugar and flour months earlier.

Whatever the reason for our strong

Thanksgiving association with turkey, one

thing's for sure: we wouldn't even have the annual holiday if it weren't for the efforts of one obsessed woman, Sarah Josepha Hale, not only editor of the early-feminist publication, Boston Ladies' Magazine, but author of "Mary Had a Little Lamb." (File under "strange but true.")

Although George Washington first tried to declare a commemorative national day of thanks in 1789, most of the colonists balked; they didn't think the hardships of a handful of Pilgrims warranted it. Even Thomas Jefferson scoffed at the idea during his presidency. It took Hale's 40 year crusade of magazine articles and letters to governors and presidents to finally wear down Abraham Lincoln enough in 1863 to proclaim the last Thursday in November as a day of Thanksgiving. But the holiday wasn't out of the woods yet. Franklin Roosevelt actually tried to move it up a week earlier to give way to a longer Christmas shopping season. It wasn't until 1941 that Congress once and for all sanctioned the fourth Thursday in November as the unmovable date of the feast of Thanksgiving.

Whether we cook our turkeys upside down or right side up, with the stuffing on the inside or the out, we're all in agreement that leftovers are essential. So blast up the oven and toss in a big one. Thanksgiving just wouldn't be the same without knowing we made enough to enjoy a second coma at midnight.

I

SECOND COMA

SANDWICH

Make two if no one's looking -
2 slices good quality bread
1 1/2 teaspoons mayonnaise
  (preferably Hellman's or homemade)
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Several slices roast turkey breast
2 tablespoons cranberry relish
1 handful watercress or baby arugula

Lightly toast bread and spread mustard on one slice and mayonnaise on the other. Layer turkey, then cranberry relish, then greens on slice with mustard. Top with the other slice. Serves 1.