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  DIAL “T” FOR TURKEY

  If you bought a Butterball Turkey in the 1970s, it would have included a sheet of cooking instructions, just like they still do today. But people still called the company to complain when their birds didn’t come out right, which made Butterball wonder if people even bothered to read and follow the instructions. Disappointing dinners make for poor repeat business, so in 1981 Butterball started printing a toll-free number on the packaging and inviting customers to call in with any cooking questions they might have.

  In those days 800 numbers were fairly rare, and the idea of calling one to get free cooking advice was a novelty. The company wasn’t sure that callers would get the concept or even understand that the long-distance call was free. But they hired six home economists, set them up with phones in the company’s test kitchen, and waited to see if the phone would ring. They were flabbergasted when more than 11,000 people jammed the line during the holiday season, especially on Thanksgiving, when the company figured hardly anyone would bother to call. An American institution was born.

  CLUELESS ON LINE 4

  Today Butterball has an automated phone system (and a Web site) to handle the most frequently asked questions. Still, more than 100,000 people call in each year to talk to the 50 turkey experts who now staff the phones from November 1 through December 25. The advent of cordless and cellular phones has put the Talk-Line in even greater demand: People now call right from the dinner table to have someone talk them through the carving of the bird.

  What’s your favorite way to cook a turkey? Over the years, Butterball has tried to come up with cooking tips for every weird turkey fad that has come down the pike. In the early 1980s, they perfected a technique for cooking a turkey in the microwave—which, believe it or not, was the third-most popular question in those days. (By 1987 it had dropped all the way to #20.) Do you cook your turkey in a big brown paper bag? In a deep fryer? In a pillowcase smeared with butter? On a countertop rotisserie? The Butterball people won’t always approve, but they will try to help.

  Need a turkey tip? The number for the Turkey Talk-Line is 1-800-BUTTERBALL.

  DO TURKEYS HAVE BELLY BUTTONS?

  Butterball has fielded some pretty bizarre questions over the past 25 years. Here are some favorites, along with the answers:

  • Should I remove the plastic wrap before I cook my turkey? Yes.

  • I don’t want to touch the giblets. Can I fish them out with a coat hanger? Yes.

  • Can I poke holes all over the turkey and pour a can of beer over it to keep it moist? You’ll do more harm than good—the skin keeps the moisture in. Poking holes in it will dry it out.

  • Can you thaw a frozen turkey using an electric hair dryer? Or by wrapping it in an electric blanket? In the aquarium with my tropical fish? In the tub while the kids are having their bath? No, no, no, and no. If you’re in a hurry, thaw the turkey in the kitchen sink by immersing it in cold water. Allow half an hour per pound, and change the water every half hour.

  • How can I thaw 12 turkeys all at once? The caller was cooking for a firehouse, so Butterball advised them to put them all in a clean trash can and hose them down with a firehose.

  • The family dog bit off a big piece of the turkey. Can the rest of it be saved? Maybe. If the damage is localized, cut away the dog-eaten part of the bird and serve the rest. Disguise the maimed bird with garnishes, or carve it up out of view of your guests and serve the slices. The less your guests know, the better.

  • The family dog is inside the turkey and can’t get out. A few years back, Butterball really did get a call from the owner of a Chihuahua that climbed inside the raw bird while the owner’s back was turned. The opening was big enough for the dog to get in, but not big enough for it to get back out. The turkey expert instructed the owner on how to enlarge the opening without injuring the dog. (No word on whether the bird was eaten.) Butterball has also fielded calls from owners of gerbils and housecats. “I was told not to talk about that,” one Talk-Line staffer told a reporter in 1997.

  • I need to drive two hours with my frozen turkey before I cook it. Will it stay frozen if I tie it to the luggage rack on the roof of my car? The caller was from Minnesota, so the answer was yes. If you live in Florida, Hawaii, or Arizona, the answer is no.

  • I’m a truck driver. Can I cook the turkey on the engine block of my semi while I’m driving? If I drive faster, will it cook faster? There’ve been cases in wartime where soldiers cooked turkeys using the heat from Jeep engines, but Butterball gives no advice on the subject.

  • I scrubbed my raw turkey with a toothbrush dipped in bleach for three hours. Is that enough to kill all the harmful bacteria? The heat of the oven is what kills the bacteria; scrubbing the turkey with bleach makes it inedible. (In extreme cases like these, or anytime the Talk-Line staffers fear the bird has become unsafe to eat, they advise the cook to discard the bird, eat out, and try again next year. If the caller can’t imagine Thanksgiving without turkey, they can get some turkey hot dogs.)

  • I didn’t want to cook the whole turkey, so I cut it in half with a chainsaw. How do I get the chainsaw oil out of the turkey? Toss the turkey and go get some hot dogs.

  • The turkey in my freezer is 23 years old. Is it safe to eat?

  Butterball advised this caller that the bird was safe, but that it probably wouldn’t taste very good. “That’s what we thought,” the caller told the Talk-Line. “We’ll give it to the church.”

  For the record, turkeys do not have belly buttons.

  MORE QUESTIONS FOR THE TALK-LINE

  • How long does it take to thaw a fresh turkey?

  • How long does it take to cook a turkey if I leave the oven door open the entire time? That was how my mom always did it.

  • Does the turkey go in the oven feet first, or head first?

  • Can I baste my turkey with suntan lotion?

  • When does turkey hunting season start?

  • How do I prepare a turkey for vegetarians?

  The chattering sound made by monkeys is called snuttering.

  STRANGE STATISTICS

  Statistics don’t lie: The world’s gone crazy.

  • According to Popular Science magazine, 1,000 fans holding up cigarette lighters at a rock concert will produce about 2.6 pounds of carbon dioxide.

  • The average pitch of Australian women’s voices has decreased by 23 hertz since 1945.

  • Harvard’s library has two books bound in human flesh.

  • One in four British veterinarians say they’ve treated a drunken dog.

  • Since 1990, cheerleading injuries in the United States have increased by 110%.

  • Since 1960, there have been 55 movies that feature an albino villain.

  • It costs the U.S. Treasury 1.73¢ to make and distribute a penny.

  • On his Web site, singer Art Garfunkel keeps a full list of the books he’s read since 1968. As of October 2006, he’d read 980.

  • Each year, approximately 13 people die from being crushed by falling vending machines.

  • Three people die annually from using their tongue to check if a battery works.

  • Parasites account for 0.01% of the average person’s weight.

  • 40,000 Americans participate in “fantasy fishing” leagues.

  • Three sisters in Scotland have a $1.84 million insurance policy to cover the cost of raising Jesus Christ, should he be born to one of them.

  • In a recent poll, 1% of Americans named Jesus “the greatest American of all time.”

  The blood of a honeybee never clots.

  LET THERE BE LIGHT

  For eight centuries their winters were clouded in darkness…until one man had a bright idea.

  WINTER’S SHADOW

  Nestled in the Alps, the Italian town of Viganella is a beautiful place to live…some of the time. Unfortunately, on November 11 the sun disappears behind the steep mountains and doesn’t return for 84 cold, dark days. It’s been like this sinc
e the town was founded, nearly 800 years ago.

  How do the residents deal with it? Most of them don’t stick around once they reach adulthood, leaving this dwindling town with mostly older people and fewer and fewer children to replace them. In fact, Viganella has been on the brink of extinction for centuries. Today there are less than 200 people left, and most of them aren’t a happy lot, suffering from winter depression.

  Modern medicine has a term for it: Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD. Lack of sunlight inhibits the production of melatonin, a hormone which people need in order to feel happy. Deprived of it for a prolonged time, humans begin to feel depressed. Viganella has suffered the effects of SAD for a long, long time. But that all changed, thanks to a strange man with a strange dream.

  MAYOR MIDALI

  Pierfranco Midali stayed in Viganella after most of his friends had left. A railway worker by trade, Midali wanted to help his town. So in 1999 he ran for mayor with an eye-opening campaign promise: “I will bring the sun to Viganella!”

  The townspeople weren’t sure if they believed Midali, but they were curious enough to elect him. But then the question became, “How do you plan to do this, Mr. Mayor?” Midali’s response: “We’ll build a huge mirror on the mountain to the north and reflect the sun’s rays onto our village!” There were two big problems with this plan, though: 1) Midali had no idea how to do it; and 2) he had no idea how to pay for it. So he called up an architect friend of his named Giacomo Bonzani who had built a sundial on the wall of a church in Viganella. Bonzani thought the plan was feasible and went to work studying the mountain. What he came up with would have been a mammoth project for even a big city, and seemed impossible for a town of 197 people. The plan: place a 2,000-pound mirror 3,600 feet above the town on top of the mountain. Measuring in at 26 by 16 feet, the mirror would be mounted on a giant computer-activated motor that would move the lens with the sun. For up to six hours a day, the mirror would redirect sunlight onto a section of town about the size of three football fields. The plan’s cost: $131,000. (Did we mention that the town only has 197 people?)

  Henry Ford grew marijuana…hoping to make new plastics from it.

  It was obvious that the town would need some outside help to pay for the mirror. First they asked the regional government to fund it. They said no. Midali then traveled across Italy and Europe, asking private citizens, banks, and corporations to pitch in. It took seven years, but Midali finally pulled it together. Meanwhile, Bonzani (the architect) had finished his plans for the mirror, and found a company to build it. By this time even the townspeople had warmed up to the idea. “I was a bit skeptical at first,” said a local tavern owner named Franco. “But now I’m all for the giant mirror. It’s freezing in my tavern and we have to keep the light on all the time.” Yet no one was as enthusiastic as Midali. “I can already see my little old ladies coming out of the church after mass,” he said, “and just standing there, enjoying a bit of sun!”

  HERE COMES THE SUN

  The big day finally came: December 17, 2006. Villagers gathered in the town square while Midali readied himself at the mirror control center. While the crowd waited in the shadow, their mayor slowly rotated the mirror, and for the first time in its long history, Viganella basked in the winter sun. “I have been waiting for this moment for seven years,” said Midali.

  * * *

  Hack Job: Many other alpine towns suffer the same winter fate as Viganella, and one local mayor thinks he has a better idea: In the town of Sedrina, also in the Italian Alps, the mayor doesn’t want reflected sun light; he wants the real thing. His proposal: remove 75 feet of rock from the top of the mountain overlooking Sedrina.

  The fastest speed Man has achieved on the moon: 10.56 m.p.h., set in a lunar rover.

  ACCORDING TO THE

  LATEST RESEARCH

  Here’s a look at some of the more unusual scientific (and a few not-so-scientific) studies we’ve been reading about lately.

  VIDEO GAMERS MAKE BETTER SURGEONS

  Researchers: Beth Israel Medical Center, New York City

  Who They Studied: Surgeons

  What They Learned: Are your kids playing video games when they should be doing their homework? They may be smarter than you think: This study of 33 surgeons found that those who “warmed up” for surgical practice drills by playing a video game called Super Monkey Ball before attempting the drills worked faster and made fewer mistakes than surgeons who did not play Super Monkey Ball. After playing the video game for 20 minutes, surgeons were tested on their ability to complete what is known as the “cobra rope” drill, which simulates inserting a tiny video camera and surgical instruments into a small incision in the skin and using them to suture an internal wound. Surgeons who played Super Monkey Ball before attempting the drill finished an average of 11 seconds faster than surgeons who didn’t, which suggests that the video game improved eye-hand coordination, visual skills, and reaction times.

  PROBLEM GAMBLER? IT MAY BE YOUR MEDS

  Researchers: The Mayo Clinic

  Who They Studied: Parkinson’s disease patients

  What They Learned: A 2005 article in Archives in Neurology reported a study which found that certain drugs used to treat symptoms of Parkinson’s disease may have a rare and unusual side effect: They may cause patients to become compulsive gamblers, even if they have never been interested in gambling before. The article described the cases of 11 Parkinson’s patients who were taking drugs known as dopamine agonists, which mimic the chemical dopamine. (Parkinson’s disease kills the brain cells that produce the dopamine.) Dopamine also plays a role in stimulating the pleasure centers of the brain, leading researchers to speculate that the dopamine agonists may overstimulate these areas of the brain, causing compulsive “pleasure-seeking” behavior. When the drug doses were reduced or eliminated entirely, the compulsion to gamble ended as abruptly as it had started.

  It’s a crime to punch a bull in the nose in Washington, D.C.

  YOUR DESTINY IS IN YOUR OWN HANDS

  Researchers: Various

  Who They Studied: Athletes

  What They Learned: According to a 2006 study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, women whose ring fingers are longer than their index fingers are better at sports involving running—soccer, tennis, and track-and-field events—than women whose ring fingers are shorter than their index fingers. A similar study published in 2001 found that 304 male English professional soccer players had “a significantly larger ring-to-index-finger ratio than a control group of 533 other men,” and other studies have also shown correlations between ring/index-finger length and things as diverse as sexuality, musical ability, and susceptibility to different diseases.

  LET’S PRAY THAT THIS STUDY IS FLAWED

  Researchers: Mind/Body Institute, Boston

  Who They Studied: Heart-bypass patients

  What They Learned: In a $2.4 million, 10-year study involving the cases of more than 1,800 patients, researchers found that prayers offered by strangers for the recovery of heart-bypass patients in six different hospitals had no effect on their recovery. The patients were divided into three groups: 1) those who were prayed for by strangers and were told so; 2) those who were prayed for by strangers but who were told they “may or may not” be prayed for; and 3) those who were not prayed for and were told nothing. (The praying was done by an order of monks, an order of nuns, and a nondenominational prayer ministry.) The study found no difference in outcome between those who were prayed for and those who were not. Then, when the researchers compared the two groups who received prayers, the results got more interesting: Those who were told they were prayed for actually suffered more complications after surgery than those who were told they may or may not be prayed for. Being told “may have made them uncertain, wondering, ‘Am I so sick they had to call in their prayer team?’” says cardiologist Dr. Charles Bethea, one of the co-authors of the study. “Our conclusion from this is that the role of awareness of prayer should be studied f
urther.” The study’s findings are similar to those of a 1997 University of New Mexico study which found that alcoholics in rehabilitation who knew they were being prayed for did worse than those who didn’t.

  The poisonous copperhead snake smells like fresh-cut cucumbers.

  GRAPEFRUIT MAKES WOMEN SEEM YOUNGER

  Researchers: Smell and Taste Institute, Chicago

  Who They Studied: Several male volunteers

  What They Learned: Researchers smeared several middle-aged women with a number of substances, including grapefruit, spearmint leaves, lavender, bananas, and broccoli, and then invited male volunteers to sniff the subjects and guess their ages. None of the substances made any difference in the men’s ability to guess the women’s ages…except for the grapefruit, which caused the men to perceive the women as being an average of six years younger than they really were.

  MARIJUANA: FOOD FOR THOUGHT

  Researchers: Scripps Research Institute, California

  Who They Studied: Alzheimer’s disease patients

  What They Learned: According to this study, smoking marijuana may help delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease by preventing the breakdown of the brain chemical acetylcholine. Reduced levels of acetylcholine, which transmits nerve impulses in the brain, is one of the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. Amazingly, smoking pot may also help to block the formation of protein clumps in the brain, which are known to impair memory and clear thinking in Alzheimer’s patients.

  SHOCKING DISCOVERY: IT’S ALL IN YOUR HEAD

  Researcher: Swiss doctor Olaf Blanke

  Who They Studied: An epileptic patient

  What They Learned: In a 2006 article in the journal Nature,

  Blanke described a case in which he and a colleague evaluated a woman to see if she was suitable for surgery to treat her epilepsy. When he electrically stimulated an area on the left side of her brain, she became convinced that she was being watched by someone who was standing behind her. When they applied the same stimulation as she leaned forward and grabbed her knees, she became convinced that the mysterious person behind her was grabbing her. Though unrelated to her epilepsy, the creepy, unexpected discovery is potentially important to the study and treatment of mental illness: “Our findings may be a step toward understanding the psychiatric manifestations such as paranoia, persecution,” Blanke writes, “and alien control.”