Thankful to live in Texas & learn Texas Traditions…
Ramona here: I’m not sure why it took me so long to move to Texas and become a Texan, but I’m so thankful I’m here now! It’s so much more fun than those other states!
The other day, we stopped at Security Bank in San Antonio. They were having a customer appreciation day, cooking hamburgers and hot dogs for all their customers.
While I was in the bank, David was outside shooting the breeze with the guys. I watched through the window and noticed that David was smiling ear to ear as they told stories.
When I joined them, it was like our days in Big Lake…and so my story goes:
I moved to Big Lake at a time in my life that I just wanted to slow down from the busy life of fame and the hustle of the big city life.
I met David and fell head over heels and married my Texas Cowboy! At least he was a cowboy to me…..He has shared lots of Texas traditions and we have made most of these our annual family and holiday events. Yep…after Thanksgiving comes Tamale making time.
At Thanksgiving one year, I remember David grabbing our turkey and saying “Come on, we’re going to see Tommy Holt”. I thought, great, he thinks that I’m going to overstuff the turkey and it’s going to explode! (I did this with my first turkey. I had so much stuffing and I didn’t want to waste any of it, so I stuffed it ALL in the turkey. All of a sudden, I heard a BIG boom and my oven door was wide open. There was turkey and stuffing all over the kitchen walls, all in the inside of my oven, and of course no turkey to serve for our dinner….thank goodness this was before David, because he might not have married me knowing I couldn’t cook! lol).
Back to seeing Tommy Holt…we went to his pump shop and there were a whole bunch of men sitting around with beers around a fire. Many of them had been lifelong friends or at least friends for a good many years. The friendliness and good natured talk back and forth was just my style.
There were over 20 turkeys in aluminum pans all lined up. We put our name on our pan, he grabbed a beer, and I just couldn’t figure out what was going to happen to our turkey. It wasn’t Thanksgiving yet, surely we weren’t going to cook it tonight!
I kept watching and then Tommy said to bring our turkey over.
Then I saw in his hand the largest needle and syringe I’ve ever seen!
What in the world was he going to do with that?
He shared with me his recipe for the injection mixture and started stabbing the turkey all over, injecting this mixture into the meat. He put our turkey in a cooler with ice and said we’d cook it tomorrow, which was Thanksgiving eve.
The evening went into the wee hours, with all kinds of stories (some true) and more friends dropping off their turkeys.
The next day, we returned to watch our turkey being cooked.
This was another hard cooking day…all the guys (the helpers! lol) were all standing around a fancy pot boiling with peanut oil in it. How many guys does it take to fry a turkey you might ask? As many beers that are available! Actually, Tommy’s twin sons were old pro’s and they handled the turkey frying chores. They were true experts, having been trained by Tommy and all his friends for several years.
David went to pick up the turkey while I was preparing the rest of the meal…..”Come on David, where’s the turkey?”
David brought the turkey in and put it on a platter.
Ok the joke was on me! This was an excuse for a bunch of guys to tell their wives they were frying turkeys, to get out and drink beer and burn the Thanksgiving meal. I didn’t know what I was going to do…I didn’t have a back up turkey. I decided since he ruined my Thanksgiving dinner, that I would sit down and we’d eat this burnt bird. I might add that I had never seen a fried turkey……
Wow!!! It was so moist and so delicious! I never will doubt Texas Traditions again.
Now, each year we fry our Thanksgiving Turkey!
We miss our West Texas friends and the annual frying of the turkeys tradition at the pump shop, but we continue to fry our turkey here in the San Antonio area….some Texas traditions are just too strong to let go of.
Here are the steps and recipe for frying your Thanksgiving Turkey….enjoy and Happy Thanksgiving!
Just click on the blue link and enjoy the video. This was done at our home in Mertzon, Texas on the banks of the Spring Creek. It’s in the San Angelo Area.
Real Texas Fried Turkey
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi David,
Good story, I remember when I came out to West Texas to show David Armsrtrong how to fry a Turkey back in the 80,s. I was invided to come out to Sandy’s parents place out in the country and I showed David how to fried a turkey for the first time. It was eaten before the other turkey was half eaten and everyone loved it. David still fries turkeys every year.
Walter
Love this story! Fun to read about my relatives and Big Lake!
Happy Thanksgiving to you two!
Love to you,
Janie