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Hot Legs

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By JEFF HOUCK | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 20, 2007

There will be fights at the Thanksgiving table. Bet on it.

Sometime after the turkey makes it to the table, ownership declarations will ring forth like Christopher Columbus staking a claim on the New World for Spain. Someone invariably will state that one of the legs belongs on their plate. He may even be so bold as to take them both. And someone else at the table will get his feelings hurt and be forced to settle for another part of the bird.

This is how much people love turkey legs.

Yes, the pristine, lean breast meat is still a prized commodity. But there are pounds of that to go around.

Wings, with their crispy skin, are barely worth the effort of digging out a few small portions of meat. And while the dark thigh meat always will be a guilty, greasy pleasure, there's plenty to pick off the bone there, too.

But the drumsticks? Last we checked, there are only two per bird. That makes them precious.

Plus, they're fun to eat. There's something primal about grabbing a leg and chomping on a huge hunk of meat. Those who are lucky enough to steal one have the extra pleasure of being the only people at the table who can use their hands to eat during what is usually a meal that requires the watching of manners.

Yes, the leg is special indeed. We went in search of people familiar with gobbler gams to illuminate how popular they truly are.

ICE CREAM TURKEY LEGS

If you want a turkey leg in Tampa's Belmont Park neighborhood, go see Ice Cream.

That's Carl Weltower's nickname.

Weltower drives an ice cream truck during the early part of the week. From Wednesday through the weekend, he operates Ice Cream's Delicious Turkey Legs and B-B-Q on North 22nd Avenue.

The roadside barbecue shack opened five years ago as a way to raise money for a local church. Two years ago, Weltower started selling turkey legs.

"I couldn't give them away back then," he says.

Now they're his No. 1 seller, right above chicken and ribs. The legs sell for $6 each.

Weltower buys them from a supplier in Jacksonville and then uses a "secret recipe" that includes six hours of cooking at low heat on a smoker. He then wraps them in aluminum foil to keep them moist.

"They come out juicy," he says. "They literally fall off the bone."

One customer from Atlanta who is coming to Tampa for Thanksgiving ordered a couple dozen for pickup today.

"People can't get enough of them," he says.

BRING ME TURKEY LEG!

Lawyer Richard Stern has been video podcasting from Palmetto Bay, south of Miami, for about two years. His clips, uploaded to YouTube and linked online to his LazyDork.com site, have generated thousands of views. (Lazy Dork started as a Web-based warehouse for college drinking games.)

Last month, Stern, 29, told a story that ran almost nine minutes long about an incident he experienced in October during Howl-O-Scream at Busch Gardens in Tampa. Stern went to the event with his fiancée, his brother and a second cousin. At one point, the group got hungry. Someone mentioned french fries. Stern decided on a turkey leg, an item he always wanted to buy but never did.

"Every time I go, I think, 'This is going to be the year I get a turkey leg,'" he says. "But it just seems like such a declaration of excess to eat an entire limb while walking around while waiting to go on a rollercoaster."

While waiting in line to buy a leg at the park, ahead of them were two men Stern described as "clearly Russian — they had the hair gel and the bad Versace shirts."

We'll let him tell it from here:

"The poor girl behind the counter is working as hard as she can, and the two guys were furious! He was screaming in a thick accent, 'TURKEY LEG! TURKEY LEG! BRING ME TURKEY LEG! I CANNOT WAIT!' I think he'd been waiting for six minutes. It was unbelievable. The whole line was stunned, you know? You can't expect five-star service. You'll get a turkey leg when it's ready. But the guy was just out of his mind.

"So for the rest of the week, all I could say to my fiancée regarding anything was, 'BRING ME CELLPHONE! I CANNOT WAIT!' Or in traffic, I'd go, "BRING ME GREEN LIGHT! I CANNOT WAIT!' And she's, like, 'It's not funny, Ricky.'"

Unfortunately for her, it soon became a catchphrase among his friends. And then it took off again after the video podcast was uploaded online.

"When we were at Busch Gardens, we were dying, but we didn't think anyone else would think it was funny," he says. "People who saw the video not only thought it was funny, they thought we should make merchandise to go with it."

To watch the video, go online to TBO.com, keyword: Stew.

FOR AMUSEMENT PURPOSES

Allen Despain wants to clear up an urban myth floating through the Internet about turkey legs sold at amusement parks such as Busch Gardens in Tampa: They do, indeed, come from actual turkeys.

Not from ostriches. Not from emus. Turkeys. From North Carolina. End of story.

"There are emus out there, and I'm sure they have a fine leg, but we use real turkey legs," the theme park's vice president of culinary operations explains. "They have to be certified as turkey legs."

Despain has worked for Busch Gardens in Tampa for 31 years. The park sells more than 60,000 turkey legs every year for $5.59 each.

"I did a little calculation," Despain says about the 91/2-inch, 22-ounce legs. "If each one was put end-to-end, it would run about 10 miles long."

The legs sold at the Kenya Canteen and the Stanleyville Theater are bought pre-smoked with hickory and then reheated to 170 degrees. They're a big seller at festivals inside the park, such as Howl-O-Scream. It makes sense, he says. It's an easy snack you can walk with instead of sitting down at a table to consume.

Despain says the turkey leg has been his Thanksgiving favorite since he was a kid.

"I would eat it as a main part of the meal," he says. "I like dark meat. No wimpy white meat for me. I always got one turkey leg — and usually both of them."

MEAT ON A STICK

The legs are celebrity chef Rocco DiSpirito's favorite part of the turkey.

During a recent interview for his new cookbook, "Rocco's Real Life Recipes," DiSpirito said it amazes him how most people will eat only chicken breast even though chicken thighs are better tasting. But, "they make an exception at Thanksgiving. Everyone wants dark meat."

The leg's allure, he says, stems from the fact that, "It's big; you can hold it in your hand. It's essentially meat on a stick."

And from a quality standpoint, "It can be dramatic how dry the breast is versus how moist the leg is," he says. "You can overcook a turkey so that the breast is like sawdust, but the legs and thighs will still be delicious."

MACHO LEGS

The essence of a turkey leg's appeal is simple, says Michael Holen, of Holen One Farms Fine Foods in Loomis, Neb.

"It's a caveman thing," Holen says.

He and his wife of 38 years, Renee, retired from farming and ranching in 1998, after their five kids grew up and left home. Faced with the option of hiring help or selling the equipment and renting out the farm to neighbors, the Holens "kept a few cows to keep us company in the winter" and started in the food concession business. They sell all sorts of delicacies, from steak-on-a-stick, limeade and pork loin to, you guessed it, turkey legs.

The couple works everything from rock concerts to rodeos and rattlesnake roundups in five Midwest states.

"We have never looked back," Holen says. "I was a chemistry major in college, and Renee graduated in art, but we have learned enough about people from watching them through our concession trailer window that I think we could write a pretty thorough book."

Men, Holen says, like to "carry around this huge hunk of meat and gnaw on it like a Neanderthal, all the time commenting to their friends, 'Geez, this is a lot of meat!' and thinking to themselves, 'Yes, I am one helluva man.'"

Women, on the other hand, eat it because they can. Oh, and, "I think it's kind of a penis envy thing," he says.

Men tear huge chunks of meat from the leg and devour it in 10 minutes or less.

"Women parade all over the grounds with the hunk of turkey all afternoon and then come back and ask if we would wrap it in foil so they can put it in their purse to take home," he says.

Occasionally, a less macho-type guy will come up and want to see what the turkey legs look like. "Renee will always show them the huge leg that looks like it was raised on steroids at Barry Bonds Turkey Ranch," he says.

"The response from this type is, 'Ooh, it looks kind of messy.' At this, my good wife will offer to remove the dark outer skin from the leg for them, revealing the pink flesh beneath. Renee likes to refer to this process as 'circumcising the leg,' which she doesn't mind doing if it results in a $7 sale."

Reporter Jeff Houck can be reached at (813) 259-7324 and jhouck@tampatrib.com.

SMOKED TURKEY LEGS

6 turkey legs

1 cup orange juice

1/2 cup pineapple juice with pineapple chunks

1/2 cup light brown sugar

11/2 ounces soy sauce

11/2 ounces Worcestershire sauce

1/2 cup brown spicy mustard (prepared mustard)

Badia brand complete seasoning

Injector needle

Lay turkey legs in an aluminum pan big enough to hold all six legs. Pour orange juice over the drumsticks, then crush pineapple chunks with your fingers and pour juice over drumsticks. Sprinkle brown sugar over drumsticks, then pour mustard, soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce.

After the drumsticks have been thoroughly coated, liberally sprinkle Badia seasoning over the drumsticks, then rub this mixture in.

Using the injector needle, begin injecting the mixture into the drumsticks. Allow this to marinate in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours. Let the drumsticks come nearly to room temperature before smoking.

Smoke in any type of wood smoker that will hold a temperature of 250 to 275 degrees for at least 4 to 5 hours. After cooking on the smoker for 3 hours, put drumsticks in an aluminum pan and wrap tin foil over the top. (Save the juice from this pan for dipping sauce.) Return to smoker for at least 1 to 11/2 hours.

Source: Cooks.com

EVA'S SAVORY TURKEY LEGS

2 cups dry bread cubes

1 large stalk celery, minced

1/3 cup dried cranberries

1/4 cup chopped walnuts

1 small yellow onion, diced

1/4 teaspoon minced garlic

1/2 teaspoon ground sage

1/2 teaspoon dried marjoram

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 egg

1/4 cup hot water

2 turkey legs

11/2 tablespoons butter

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place a large sheet of aluminum foil on a medium baking sheet.

In a medium bowl, mix the bread, celery, cranberries, walnuts, onion and garlic. Season with sage, marjoram, salt and pepper. Stir in the egg and enough hot water to moisten.

Arrange turkey legs on the foil sheet, and season with salt and pepper. Spoon the bread mixture around the legs, and dot with butter. Tightly seal the foil around the legs and bread mixture.

Bake 1 hour in the preheated oven, or until the turkey leg meat has reached an internal temperature of 180 degrees.

Source: AllRecipes.com

SPICY FRIED TURKEY LEGS

8 turkey legs, rinsed and patted dry

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons Essence seasoning, (recipe follows)

1/2 cup hot red pepper sauce

1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Peanut oil, for deep frying

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon salt

1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon cayenne

2 teaspoons garlic powder

Ranch dressing

In a large shallow dish, place the turkey legs and season with the Essence. In a small bowl, combine the hot sauce, Worcestershire, and lemon juice and whisk to combine. Pour mixture over the legs, cover, and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Heat the oil in the deep fryer to 365 degrees.

In a large shallow dish, combine the flour, salt, black pepper, cayenne and garlic powder and stir to combine. Roll the turkey legs in the mixture to lightly coat, shaking to remove any excess.

Carefully add the legs to the deep fryer, in batches if necessary. Fry for about 4 to 5 minutes, or until skin is golden brown and meat is completely cooked through. Drain on paper towels. Season with Essence, to taste, and serve hot.

Source: Food Network

EMERIL LAGASSE's ESSENCE CREOLE SEASONING (also referred to as Bayou Blast):

21/2 tablespoons paprika

2 tablespoons salt

2 tablespoons garlic powder

1 tablespoon black pepper

1 tablespoon onion powder

1 tablespoon cayenne pepper

1 tablespoon dried oregano

1 tablespoon dried thyme

Combine all ingredients thoroughly.

Yield: 2/3 cup

Source: "New New Orleans Cooking," by Emeril Lagasse and Jessie Tirsch

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