The Original Self Basting Turkey

Placing strips of bacon on the turkey breast provides continual basting.

My Mother was a wonderful cook.  In our house, everything was made from scratch.  Back in those days, "convenience foods" aka processed and packaged foods, were considered a luxury and often times were more expensive than whole foods.  Times certainly have changed, haven't they?

My parents came to the United States from Poland, and I was born here.  I have vivid memories of visiting my friend's homes as a girl, and one thing I realized very early in life was that the way my Mother kept her kitchen was vastly different from the way my friend's mothers kept theirs.  For one thing, my Mama had what I thought were some peculiar cooking habits.  She never used a potato peeler, she used a knife (forget about instant potatoes!).  She didn't use charcoal to grill, she used the wood from an apple tree that had been cut down from the backyard (My sisters and I were pretty sure we would get poisoned from food grilled over wood instead of charcoal!.  My Mama cut down that tree herself, by the way.)  Another thing she did, which seemed really weird to me (and also to any of my neighborhood friends who were lucky enough to be hanging around on Turkey Day), was to place strips of bacon on the breast meat of  the Thanksgiving turkey.   I remember when Butterball came out with the self basting turkey....my Mama scoffed because she had been making self-basting turkey on Thanksgiving for years!

Anyway, that's what I wanted to share with you today:  Place a couple of strips of bacon over your turkey breast next time you make one.  You won't have to worry about basting, and you'll have excellent bacon ready for that turkey club you'll make with the leftovers.