| Title: | Hen turkey |
| Original Title: | Poule d'Inde |
| Volume and Page: | Vol. 13 (1765), p. 199 |
| Author: | Gabriel-François Venel (biography) |
| Translator: | Dena Goodman [University of Michigan] |
| Subject terms: |
Diet
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| Original Version (ARTFL): | Link |
| Rights/Permissions: |
This text is protected by copyright and may be linked to without seeking permission. Please see http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/terms.html for information on reproduction. |
| URL: | http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0004.230 |
| Citation (MLA): | Venel, Gabriel-François. "Hen turkey." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Dena Goodman. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2021. Web. [fill in today's date in the form 18 Apr. 2009 and remove square brackets]. <http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0004.230>. Trans. of "Poule d'Inde," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, vol. 13. Paris, 1765. |
| Citation (Chicago): | Venel, Gabriel-François. "Hen turkey." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Dena Goodman. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0004.230 (accessed [fill in today's date in the form April 18, 2009 and remove square brackets]). Originally published as "Poule d'Inde," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, 13:199 (Paris, 1765). |
Hen turkey, [1] the fattened hen turkey , when it is on the point of having achieved its full growth, that is when it is around 9 or 10 months old, which comes towards the end of the month of January, produces a very healthy and excellent dish, although plain.
The meat of the hen turkey is more flavorful or juicier than that of the young turkey that is eaten at the end of the summer and in the fall, because it is more done. It is more delicate than that of the male, that is, of the young tom turkey of the same age. See Tom turkey. It is for this reason that only young hen turkeys , stuffed with truffles, are sent to the other provinces of the realm (and primarily Paris) from the Perigord, the Limousin, or the Quercy, etc., and never young tom turkeys.
Furthermore, the shipment of these hen turkeys stuffed with truffles gives rise to an observation, or at least a very plausible suspicion; that is, that the scent of truffles is antiseptic or seasoning, condiens , because the hen turkeys thus stuffed with truffles, then later emptied, are still very fresh after a month, whereas poultry smells rotten if it is kept only 24 hours after having been gutted without cooking it.
1. The term in French is poule d’Inde or Indian hen. Poule d’Inde eventually got shortened to dinde , which is the word for “turkey” today.