Talkin' Turkey at Butterball
Nov. 15th, 2003 06:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robotech_masterThe following is an excerpt from I'm a Spam® Fan: America's Best-Loved Foods by Carolyn Wyman, Longmeadow Press, 1993, pg. 131-2:
Since they first started selling Butterball turkeys in 1954, Swift-Eckrich has been behind many innovations to make it easier for people to prepare and cook the bird. The company was the first (in 1954) to develop the bar strap, a device that eliminates the need for skewers or trussing; the first (in 1971) to put giblets and necks in easy-to-remove bags; the first (in 1972) to invent the turkey lifter, a string cradle that makes it easier to lift the hot turkey from the roasting pan. But possibly the best thing Swift-Eckrich ever did for the turkey-roasting public was to start up the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line, a toll-free number devoted to dealing with questions about turkey preparation.
From six home economists who answered 11,000 questions in a corner of the Swift-Eckrich building in 1981, the Turkey Talk-Line has grown into a computerized operation that handles more than 200,000 calls annually from ambitious, inexperienced, or distressed turkey chefs.
Among the most ambitious heard in the Talk-Line's 10 years have been:
When asked how she learned about the Talk-Line, one caller replied that she saw it in a newspaper lining the bottom of a kennel at the vet's office where she worked. One young North Carolina woman's bewildered response to the same question reveals a lot about how the Talk-Line is peceived and respected. "It's like asking how you know your grandmother!" she said.
The Butterball Turkey Talk-Line (800-323-4848) is staffed from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Central Standard Time weekdays for about a month before Thanksgiving, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thanksgiving Day, and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays from Thanksgiving until a few days before Christmas.
I always like to read that, about this time of year.
Since they first started selling Butterball turkeys in 1954, Swift-Eckrich has been behind many innovations to make it easier for people to prepare and cook the bird. The company was the first (in 1954) to develop the bar strap, a device that eliminates the need for skewers or trussing; the first (in 1971) to put giblets and necks in easy-to-remove bags; the first (in 1972) to invent the turkey lifter, a string cradle that makes it easier to lift the hot turkey from the roasting pan. But possibly the best thing Swift-Eckrich ever did for the turkey-roasting public was to start up the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line, a toll-free number devoted to dealing with questions about turkey preparation.
From six home economists who answered 11,000 questions in a corner of the Swift-Eckrich building in 1981, the Turkey Talk-Line has grown into a computerized operation that handles more than 200,000 calls annually from ambitious, inexperienced, or distressed turkey chefs.
Among the most ambitious heard in the Talk-Line's 10 years have been:
Among the most inexperienced have been:The woman who wanted to know if she could pop popcorn in the turkey cavity; another who wanted to stuff hers with a whole pineapple; A pair who asked a Talk-Line operator, "How do you pluck a fresh turkey? We just shot it"; The woman who wanted to make a three-tiered bird; she was looking for a recipe to stuff her turkey with a chicken that was stuffed with a Cornish hen;
Among the most desperate:The nonsewing cook who was relieved to hear she would not have to baste her turkey with needle and thread; The fashion-conscious caller from Phoenix who wanted to know if Butterball had a double-breasted turkey; The Mankato, Minnesota resident who wanted to know if she was supposed to baste under the turkey's armpits; The woman who called complaining that the turkey wings didn't have any meat on them (the Turkey-Line employee solved the problem by telling her to turn the turkey over to the other side).
While they have people on the phone, the Talk-Line operators gather statistics about the holiday cooking. Their 1989 and 1990 results revealed that even in postfeminist times, 92% of turkeys are prepared by women and 70% carved by men (80% of the time in the kitchen rather than the dining room). In addition, almost 28,000 cooks said they took pictures of their bird.The woman who forgot to remove the plastic covering before cooking and ended up with a waterproof turkey; The Mrs. Clean who accidentally left a rubber glove inside her turkey when she cooked it; The guy from Santa Fe who wanted to know if Butterball did door-to-door delivery of cooked turkeys.
When asked how she learned about the Talk-Line, one caller replied that she saw it in a newspaper lining the bottom of a kennel at the vet's office where she worked. One young North Carolina woman's bewildered response to the same question reveals a lot about how the Talk-Line is peceived and respected. "It's like asking how you know your grandmother!" she said.
The Butterball Turkey Talk-Line (800-323-4848) is staffed from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Central Standard Time weekdays for about a month before Thanksgiving, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thanksgiving Day, and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays from Thanksgiving until a few days before Christmas.
I always like to read that, about this time of year.
