by Ron James

Created on: November 17, 2010

I don't suppose I need to tell you that more turkeys head off to that Great Turkey Farm in the Sky on Thanksgiving than on all the other days of the year combined. A lot of people even use the terms “Thanksgiving” and “Turkey Day” interchangeably.

And I don't suppose I need to tell you either that many of these birds are sacrificed in vain. They live their brief lives only to wind up as dried out, overcooked burnt offerings lying like bricks of shoe leather-covered sawdust on platters adorning holiday tables while diners politely nibble on their desiccated flesh and pretend to enjoy it for the sake of the occasion.

But it doesn't have to be that way. A moist, succulent, delicious turkey can grace your holiday table if you will simply bard your bird.

I know what comes to most minds when the word “bard” is used, and, I assure you, the culinary application has nothing to do with Shakespeare. But the barding that will save your bird from an ignoble fate is actually an old cooking technique with which Shakespeare may well have been familiar. It's been around for a long time, but has only recently enjoyed a resurgence in popularity.

Barding involves preparing a cut of meat for roasting by covering it with strips of fat. The fat of choice is almost always some form of bacon.

You can bard almost anything. Even the cheapest cuts of meat will benefit from the application of bacon, and the more expensive cuts – bacon-wrapped filet mignon, for instance – will be that much more delectable. But barding works particularly well on poultry.

You know how a nice, well-marbled steak will cook up so tender that it practically melts in your mouth? You can thank the marbling for that. Sorry, Health Police, but fat makes the culinary world go 'round. The application of heat to the muscle tissue of animal flesh – in other words, meat – leaches out moisture and, with it, flavor. Layers of fatty tissue surrounding lean muscle tissue impart necessary moisture and flavor to the meat. Naturally lean meats – like turkey – don't have these fat deposits to draw on and so they tend to overcook and dry out much more quickly than their fattier counterparts.

Barding uses fatback to put the fat back. (Cute little play on words there, huh?) By covering lean meat with strips of fatty meat, the fat renders out of the fatty meat during cooking and is taken in by the leaner meat, resulting in an increase of both moisture and flavor.

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