Be thankful for turkey cooking patents
boingboing.net
boingboing.net
For those who have no clue what I'm talking about, see http://www.food52.com/blog/2713_russ_parsons_drybrined_turke... for some history on drybrining Thanksgiving turkey. (The technique has only been used on turkeys since 2006, so the history is mostly recent, even though dry brining is older.)
If you don't know what that is, for your next turkey you cook I highly recommend mixing 1 tablespoon of salt for every 5 pounds of turkey with whatever spices you'd like to taste in your turkey, sprinkle it over the turkey, put it in a plastic bag, and leave it in the fridge for several days before cooking normally. (You may have to search a little to find a turkey that has not already been brined, but you really want that because otherwise the salt balance is wrong and you don't get YOUR herbs in it.)
You will get a much better turkey. And no, it is not patented. True innovation and patents are orthogonal.
Saying that putting salt on a turkey a couple days ahead has "only been used on turkeys since 2006" is made up, and it's stupid.
Which surprises me, because you're smart.
Russ Parsons has been publishing in a nationally read newspaper on this subject for several years. He's had a lot of letters back with people suggesting various tricks to make it better. (One of those is where he got the idea of trying to add spices to that salt.) As far as I know he has not received one response to the tune of, "I've known about this for ages, see X." To the contrary I've seen a number of food experts comment positively on this as a new twist to the holiday turkey.
That is why I have come to the belief that this really is an innovation. But I'd be happy to be corrected.
No, and I'm not going to go looking through home cooking cookbooks to try to prove something to you, either. That's not where cooking innovation happens.
In the meantime I'll look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russ_Parsons, conclude that he's a pretty good authority on food, and conclude that, even if someone else was out there dry brining turkeys before him, it was certainly innovative for him to try it.
And he's certainly done more to popularize the idea than everyone before him, combined.