2002-08-19 - 3:17 p.m.

Okay...you asked for it...well...no you didn't...but since it needs to be recorded for posterity...here is the complete story of the exploding Chiurgeon Camp Turkey!

You see, last year the Chiurgeon Camp at Pennsic fried a 15 lb turkey. It was yummy to say the least. So we figured we would do that again this year.

The problem was that last year, we ran out of turkey meat...that sucked...so our illustrious shopping Goddess decided that we needed a larger turkey.

So we had two...one 20 lb and one 23 lb.

This caused a problem, as our turkey frying setup (commonly known as the "Thing you stick up the turkey's butt" wasn't really set up to handle a 23 lb turkey...but if we tweaked it a little it was okay.

Along comes Monday of War week, and it's Turkey Time! the frypot is set up, the propane is set, and the oil is poured in.

This is probably where the problems started...

The frypot was only about 1/4 of the way full...and we had a 23 lb turkey to fry...obviously we were inadequately oiled.

So we sent the camp kids off to the Cooper's store with 2 $20 bills and an instruction to "buy all of the oil you can get"

They come back 15 minutes later with 20...yes 20...16 oz bottles of wesson oil.

So we empty 16 of the 20 bottles into the frypot, and now it's looking like enough oil.

So we put in the first turkey, and it sizzles away happily for about an hour (3 minutes per pound). And yes, some oil spills over the top and side, but not much and it seems okay...

And they prep turkey two...

And they start to put it into the fire.

And the oil starts bubbling out the top...

And the oil starts flaming on the far side of the pot...

And there is no good way out of this, so our intrepid chef drops the turkey in the rest of the way and backs up quick...

Next there was a WHOOSH!! and a 6 ft fireball of flaming oil.

Fortunately no damage...and the meat was yummy!

The next tale of Pennsic XXXI will be tomorrow, when we discuss cooking 53 lbs of dead cow.

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