While preparing for this year’s Thanksgiving feast where I’ll be serving delightful Deep Fried turkey, I grew to become interested in the origin of the succulent treat.
What is Deep Fried Turkey?
”Frying whole turkeys is sort of the Southern version of making fondue. You have a lot of your friends over, you poke around in a pot of hot oil with some sticks, and then you pull out your dinner.” Justin Wilson, of Cajun fame, recalls initially seeing a turkey fry in La in the 1930s.–Something Different: Deep-Fried Turkey, Beverly Bundy, St. Louis Dispatch, Nov 24, 1997 (Food p. 4)
What is a deep fried turkey you ask? Injected with marinade and cooked in 350 degree F peanut or other vegetable oil, deep-fried turkey is anything but greasy. The deep-frying approach seals in the juices making flavorful meat and delicious golden brownish skin. Incredibly succulent on the interior and wonderfully crispy on the exterior, the explosion of flavor and contrasting textures has made it a favourite for barbecues, block parties, tailgating, holiday feasts and casual wedding receptions.
It seems I first heard aboutdeep frying turkey about 15 years ago, then out of the blue everyone and their brother was doing it. So what sparked this surprising phenomenon?
Roots in the Southern United States
Deep frying turkey has it’s origins in the Southern United States, specifically Louisiana. I have observed there are a few restaurants in Southern Louisiana that became well-liked by injecting entire birds with a creole style marinade then dropping them in hot peanut oil. There had to be something bigger though to get the word out, Regional restaurants simply do not possess the reach to alter a deep rooted custom such as oven baked turkey.
I believed perhaps it was the new accessibility of big deep fryers such as the first Kamp Kooker marketed by Home Depot, or was it a favorite of celeb cooks like Emeril?
Why is it referred to as Cajun if it’s not?
I started performing a little investigation on the internet, and though I only spent a few hours, it seems no precise year, restaurant, or man or woman is related to this certain style of preparing turkey. There is proof that fried turkeys have been prepared outdoors for massive activities (family reunions, charity dinners, church suppers, etc.) in the beginning years of the twentieth century.
Frequently believed of as a cajun tradition, I could discover no immediate ties to the acadien-cajun culture. In fact I located food historians typically concur that fried turkeys trace their roots to Bayou (La/Texas) creole cuisine. Excellent recipes then migrated from Louisiana/Texas to Missouri, Tennessee, Georgia, and Wa D.C. before it forked northward toward Seattle and Vancouver.
The Power of Martha Stewart
So right here looks to be the magic bullet. I did uncover where Martha Stewart is given credit for getting the recipe to mainstream America in the early 90′s:
“Fried turkey has been all the rage at leastt for the last decade in New Orleans, and long before that it was a tradition in the bayou and throughout the South.” Like a lot of vainglorious culinary mania before it, the nationwide renown of deep fried turkeys can be traced immediately to Martha Stewart, who plucked them from regional obscurity and put them in her magazine in 1996. —It’s Treacherous, But Oh So Tasty; Fried-Turkey Fans Take the Risk, Annie Gowen, Wa Post, Nov 22, 2001 (p. B1)
If this is the case, it would seem Martha may have produced an entire industry. A standard setup including all the turkey fryer accessories can easily run $200-$300. I would say those folks and the peanut oil people owe Martha a big thanks.
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