Turkey methods

My dad was a cook in the air force.  He was a very good cook.  Not a chef certainly but a cook.  Pretty much short order was what he knew instinctively after all those years.

My mom also cooked but she had a different expertise.  She did Japanese.  Did it well too since she WAS Japanese.

But back to my dad.  Every year for Thanksgiving and Christmas we'd have roast turkey.  With all the trimmings.  Yum.  The best turkey ever.

He always cooked it in a big brown paper bag.  You prepped it, stuck it in the bag, put it in the oven and didn't open it til it was done.  And it was always perfect.  Every time.  Tender on the inside, crispy skin (which btw, I used to eat but no longer). 

My husband usually does the cooking (or used to, now he rarely cooks).  But he always makes the turkey.  He scoffed at me and the brown paper bag method and will not, he refuses to even try the brown paper bag method.  He used to tell me that no way that would work because it would catch on fire.  Hrumpf, ours never did.  I stopped asking him to do it that way many years ago.

But this morning I thought about cooking turkey and thought I'd go look at recipes.  Look:  Paper Bag Turkey is crisp, brown and juicy every time. Once you learn how to cook a turkey this way you'll never go back to basting.   and  Roasting a turkey in a brown paper bag is a method not many people are usually familiar with so here are the steps on how to make it. It's pretty easy and fun too.    It is easy but I'm not sure that last thing - it being fun to do is exatly accurate.  Putting something into a bag and putting it into an oven isn't exactly my idea of FUN but to each his own.

Nowadays I'd use either parchment paper (to make my own bag) or a roasting bag (much easier than constructing a bag).  I have visions of bulk brown paper bags on the floor of a warehouse and icky things crawling on them.  

That said, maybe I'll offer to do the turkey this year.