Like everyone else, I'm trying to go for a so-called "perfect" Thanksgiving turkey, with juicy meat and a crisp brown skin. Last night I tried my turkey method on a 7-pound chicken and it tasted terrific, though the skin wasn't crisp and golden. Thanks to a good brine I've nailed the "moist" part, but I'm still working on getting a good golden brown color for the skin. A lot of roast turkey recipes call for a roast at high heat to brown the skin, then lowering the temperature to properly cook it. However, all of these recipes (even Alton Brown) are vague with the initial high temperature roast, as they just say "roast at 450 or 500 degrees for 30 minutes, then turn down the oven temperature to 350." Now, there's a real difference between roasting a 12 pound turkey at 500, roasting a twenty pound turkey at 500, or even roasting a 7-pound chicken at 500. Is there a more exact method for the initial roast to brown the skin?

tl;dr: How many minutes per pound should I roast the turkey at 500 to get a crisp brown skin?

Thank you for all of your input to this thread, O-Chef. Your point about there being a lack of glass and ovens in those days sounds like it's closest to the mark; also, canning wasn't invented until the 1800s. It likely developed into an ongoing tradition to make brown bread in a cylindrical tin, which would have become associated with the bread. As far as I can tell, brown bread came back into fashion in the mid-1800s, and that's when fancier ingredients such as raisins were added to it. It seems likely that because the newly-developed science of canning was taking hold right about then, the re-introduction of brown bread used a can because it resembled the look of the Puritan bread tin, plus it gave folks an excuse to use cans as part of the canning fad. From there, it would suggest that it became traditional to make the bread in a can, and thus it stayed. From there we can see the origin of B&M brown bread in a can.

Looks like Alton Brown did a piece specifically on what he calls "Boston brown bread" ("Pantry Raid X - Molasses"), in which he theorizes that the grains used in brown bread were all used in the "distillation of spirits," and thus this brown bread rose from brewing hooch. Molasses was well known for its usefulness in making rum, and Boston was the molasses capital of the British Empire for a while, etc. etc...but on the show, Alton also showed a cylindrical metal tin with a lid that, he said, was used by the Puritans for steaming this brown bread. The cylindrical shape of the tin allegedly gave rise to the tradition of steaming it in a can. It's as good a theory as any, I suppose; though the idea of frugal New Englanders using leftover cans also seems possible.

Having scored myself an antique Boston beanpot, this weekend I'm going to spend the day slow-cooking Boston baked beans and steaming a loaf of New England brown bread to go with it. (I'm assigned to the work on-call pager that day, so I'll be stuck in the house with time to slow-cook.) I've been looking into the history of New England brown bread, such as it is, and one question I can't seem to find an answer for is: why is it steamed in a can? You could use a glass cooking bowl or some other dish to cook it, so why did they steam it in a can? Was it convenient to use a spare storage can to steam the bread?

That's one reason why the recommended seasoning process for this method calls for a 500 degree oven. Because it's over the smoke point for the oil, it burns a layer of carbon onto the pan; this will prevent it from going rancid quickly.

Thank you for confirming that our results were essentially the same as yours. I like your suggestion for seasoning a pan, and I'll try it with a 12-inch Griswold pan that I'll be receiving from an eBay seller today. Getting an initial seasoning onto the pan in 45 minutes sounds much more attractive than the several days it took to season those two pans previously.

My magnetic knife bar is mounted on the side of my refrigerator, which is situated next to the counter. I purchased some tiny but heavy-duty rare-earth neodymium magnets to fasten the bar to the side of the fridge. It's been there for a month, loaded with two 8-inch chef's knives, a cleaver, santoku, paring knife, slicing knife, and kitchen shears, and so far it's held up well with no sign of slipping. I do have to be a little careful when removing blades from the bar; one time the bar did slip when I yanked the cleaver directly off of the bar. But otherwise it looks great and feels great.

As you know, the idea of using flaxseed oil to season a cast iron pan became known far and wide after Cook's Illustrated eagerly endorsed it. The article in question, published in the January 1, 2011 issue, was titled "The Ultimate Way To Season Cast Iron" and it specifically stated, "The flaxseed oil so effectively bonded to the skillets, forming a sheer, stick-resistant veneer, that even a run through our commercial dishwasher with a squirt of degreaser left them totally unscathed. But the vegetable oil-treated skillets showed rusty spots and patchiness when they emerged from the dishwasher, required reseasoning before use."

However, when we took the time to test this method, we came to considerably different results: enough for us to conclude there is *no* difference between seasoning a cast iron pan with flaxseed oil, and seasoning it with regular vegetable oil. Our test took place on the Facebook group "Cast Iron Cooking" at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cast-Iron-Cooking/217078104969894 -- the photos of the tests can be seen at http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?se...& ;type=1