Why don't we spatchcock the turkey?

Every competent chef knows that a 15 pound turkey with its large cavity,

with its white meat and its dark meat,

is almost impossible to roast properly.

It takes a long time.

The dark meat isn't cooked.

The white meat gets dry.

It's a pain in the neck.

Why not spatchcock the turkey in which we remove the spine,

push it down flat on a baking sheet, and in less time with less fuss we get a better turkey.

The reason we don't spatchcock the turkey is that Mrs. Thaddeus Wheaton didn't do it that way.

Hey, this is Emily in the Bronx,

and you're listening to a special archived episode of A Kimbo. You might be listening to this around Thanksgiving or you might not.

It doesn't matter.

The lessons transfer to so many elements of our culture.

The reason that we care about Mrs. Thaddeus Wheaton is that she was Norman Rockwell's neighbor.

And Norman Rockwell painted a painting in the early 1940s

that was on the cover of the most important largest circulation magazine in the country,

and that painting, Freedom from Want, ended up teaching everyone what Thanksgiving was supposed to be like.

Thanksgiving, like Christmas, like so many other elements of mass culture,

is about two things, cohesion and commerce.

At the first Thanksgiving, if there was a first Thanksgiving,

...