Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 11, 1995                   TAG: 9510110034
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

I LIKE TURKEY IN ITS PLACE

You'll notice I said bacon product. This is not bacon as your average southerner has fried and worshiped it for centuries.

I can't help but wonder what might have happened early in the Civil War if the men of the Army of Northern Virginia had been issued bacon made out of turkey.

Forget frying your chicken in the grease this stuff makes. In the first place, there's very little grease in it. Secondly, the idea of chicken being fried in turkey grease is not one you'd like to carry around for any length of time.

You put these strips that look like pieces of the paper streamers used to decorate the gym for the junior-senior prom in the microwave and they come out tasting like pieces of paper streamers used to decorate the gym for the junior-senior prom.

I know that this turkey business is good for my health and that fat is bad for everybody. I know that many people believe red-meat eaters and people who don't watch their fat intake are idiots and gluttons who will die horrible deaths while polite society ignores them.

I like turkey in its place, which is on Thanksgiving Day and in sandwiches for days afterward, but I'm afraid turkey is going to take over the world. I don't think the Pilgrims had any idea this was going to happen.

I didn't say a word when they started making hotdogs out of turkey. Now, however, this thing seems to be accelerating dangerously.

What's going to happen when they start making booze out of turkey? People are going to stop drinking and they'll be nasty when Aunt Zelda invites everybody over for Christmas brunch and serves turkey banana bread.

What about turkey egg nog?

I'm wondering what's going to happen to our minds when we open the freezer one day and find a box of Klondike bars made out of turkey.

Turkey root beer, anyone? Or a Dove bar made out of drumsticks?

I personally don't know why we couldn't make bacon out of red meat. It would probably be pretty good if you didn't put it in the microwave and kill it.

I'd like to know why turkey is so big these days. Why don't we give country ham a chance?

I know that many of us could support a Klondike bar made out of country ham.