Let’s see… turkey in a pit.
Tuesday Night
Turkey goes in the brine-bath.
Wednesday Night
Dig a big pit, remove child and stack up lots of wood and big ol’ rocks. The wood will burn to heat the rocks, and the rocks will bake the turkey.
Pat turkey dry, rub in butter and pepper and wrap in corn leaves/foil/chicken wire
Wear layers; it’s chilly in here!
Thursday Morning
Get up early to start pit fire
Let that burn down to embers
Once its just rocks and embers, quickly remove remaining embers, drop in the turkey, cover top and sides with soaking wet rags, and cover the pit up with dirt so no steam gets out. At this point the meat can stay in for anywhere from 3 to 8 hours; the rocks cool down eventually so there’s little danger of overcooking it.
3 hours later
Dig up the meat and unwrap. Our turkey is uberjuicy and so tender the meat is falling off the bone. 
The turkey was delicious, prep was really not that hard, and the beautiful part: for three hours before Thanksgiving dinner I was free to prepare mashed potatoes, dressing, etc. I think brining is really the way to go for a fabulous tasting turkey, and baking it the pit added a bit of a smoked flavor to round it off. This method’s a keeper. Maybe I’ll try a pig next time.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Way to go Peter. I’ve been brining poultry for years (it’s a well kept secret of most gourmet restaurants). It’s definitely the way to go. And the pit … I love anything that get’s that earthy. If table presentation is a must (with me it’s not) then giving the finshed bird a wipe with butter and a few minutes in the oven will brown it up quite nice.
Thanks for the demo.
ooh that oven trick sounds good. I’ll have to keep that in mind. One thing I want to try next time is to get something other than corn to wrap it all in. Lemon leaves maybe…
Alright.. lets see if I can resize these pictures and fix the formatting