I have a few photos from one of my recent writing assignment photo shoots concerning the perils of deep-frying a turkey. (Don't do it! It's not worth it!)
My editor and I, plus a photographer, headed to the fire department's training facility so that the training captain could help us blow up a turkey. Well, we arranged it all ahead of time, of course. I don't know that you can knock on the fire department's front door and just ask that sort of thing.
Anyway, here are a few photos.
Meet our bird. This is the poor sucker all wrapped up pre-deep-frying incident. Notice the weight. It says 18 pounds. 18!!! Turns out my editor had a really difficult time finding a turkey around town in the firs place. (Maybe all the grocery stores are getting ready for Thanksgiving by clearing out all the "old" turkeys? Who knows.) So this was the only turkey he could find. Therefore, this was the smallest turkey he could find. Personally, I felt a little guilty. There are people who struggle to put food on their tables all the time, and here we were, about to drop an 18-pound fowl into a vat of hot peanut oil just for the photo opp. Sad face. At least the magazine will be distributing food to people for the holiday. That makes me feel a little better.
And this is the poor dear all unwrapped and exposed. Oh, also -- frozen. Because that's one of the big mistakes people make when they try to deep-fry a turkey. Please, for the love of all known safety precautions, THAW the bird COMPLETELY beforehand. Or just don't deep-fry your turkey, that would be better.
This is the fire captain about to hack into the turkey with the sledgehammer he's holding in his right hand. It had to be done in order to wedge some metal into the bird in order to suspend the thing from a rope in order to hang it over a rafter in order to safely lower the thing into the pot in which it would eventually be cooked.
This is the turkey being dropped into the pot. I didn't get the big splash of hot oil (400 degrees, I think it was), but here you can see that some of the oil spilled over the edge of the pot and is burning over the heat source underneath. Pay no attention to my editor's elbow. He was trying to take photos with a digital SLR. I only had my iPhone on-hand. This also explains the poor quality of my photo.
After about 30 seconds, the fire captain raised the turkey from the pot. Notice how it already looks all golden and delicious. This is him inspecting the turkey and the equipment to make sure everything's OK for us to dunk the turkey one more time. And so it continued, more of the dunking and hot oil flying everywhere and the bird sizzling.
If you plan on deep-frying a turkey (you're crazy!), it's imperative you follow the safety precautions found here. Do NOT use an 18-pound turkey (use 12 pounds or less). Do NOT use a frozen turkey. Do NOT fill the pot almost to the top with oil (like we did here to get a splash). DO have a fire extinguisher present. Or, you know, a fire captain. Who has a fire extinguisher with him. Did I mention you should follow the safety precautions found here?
All (poor-quality) photos by Sway Sovay
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