November 25, 2002
DOWN HOME:
Gastronomic feat of stuffing portions
___If you feel "stuffed" this Thursday afternoon, you'll be in good company.
___Americans will eat tons--believe me, that's no exaggration--of stuffed turkey on Thanksgiving Day. This, of course, raises the question of the week: Are people who consume great quantities of stuffed turkey to be considered "double-stuffed," sort of like the extra-thick Oreos?
___According to the U.S Census Bureau, our country is expected to raise 270 million turkeys this year. That's about one turkey for every man, woman, boy and girl within our borders. (Do you remember the "good ol' days," when you thought the Census Bureau only counted people and the number of bathrooms we had and how many people had telephones? Did they count farm animals back then, only we were so preoccupied discovering the nation's human-to-bathroom and person-to-telephone ratios that we failed to notice?)
MARV KNOX
Editor
___The latest Census Bureau report goes on to predict the average American will eat about 13.6 pounds of turkey this year, "no doubt a good bit of it at Thanksgiving time."
___If you were to think, "Those figures add up; an almost-14-pounder for every man, woman, boy and girl in America sounds about right," you'd be wrong. You forgot to account for the feathers, gobblers and turkey feet we don't eat.
___That's why, the Census Bureau tells us, we import $12 million in turkeys--all from our northern neighbors, the Canadians. The Bureau doesn't say how much turkey that is, but we can do the math: Frozen turkey (hey, it's Canadian) costs $1 per pound into $12 million worth of turkeys is 12 million pounds. That's enough to feed 882,353 Americans all the turkey they need for a year.
___In case you're wondering, the Census Bureau counts more than turkeys.
___We will produce 572 million pounds of cranberries this year. This will come as quite a shock to all the good Baptist boys and girls who think cranberries don't come in pounds, but in cans.
___We'll also grow 1.4 billion pounds of sweet potatoes, plus import another $2.4 million worth of yams from the Dominican Republic.
___And Americans will raise 831 million pounds of pumpkins, some of which still lie in chunks a couple of blocks from our house, a sad reminder of the "trick" part of "trick or treat."
___Since nobody at the Census Bureau apparently was raised in Texas, they didn't count how many pecans we'll grow for our Thanksgiving pecan pies.
___And this week, if you've got the blues because of the stock market and Saddam Hussein and you don't know where to start in saying thanks, thank the Lord we live in a land where food is so plentiful we count it in millions of pounds. And thank God you're not a turkey.
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