Introduction: In this article, Gena Philibert-Ortega searches old newspapers to find recipes to use up that leftover holiday turkey. Gena is a genealogist and author of the book “From the Family Kitchen.”
I recently bought a box of vintage recipe cards, and the first one that I saw reminded me of a feeling most of us experience at the end of the Thanksgiving holiday – after we’ve had our fill of turkey sandwiches and turkey soup day after day.
That feeling we get when we can’t stand to eat another meal made up of Thanksgiving leftovers!
Goodbye Turkey
I started laughing when I saw this recipe card in the collection I bought – but then I wondered if the woman who penned it was the originator of this casserole with a sense of humor about leftovers, or if it was a more well-known recipe.
My purchased collection actually includes two cards with this recipe name: one handwritten and one typed. The typed recipe card version provides directions for 6 and 24 servings. The handwritten recipe does differ in some ingredients from the typed recipe – which made me assume, at first, that there was some sort of mistake. (Don’t ever assume!)
Goodbye Turkey, Hello Newspapers
I decided to see if I could find this recipe in old newspapers. To find out, I turned to GenealogyBank’s Historical Newspaper Archives for the answer.
This would help me ascertain when this recipe was published and/or popular. I simply searched on the phrase “Goodbye Turkey” in the “Include Keywords” box on the GenealogyBank search form. I didn’t search using anything else. I knew that if the results were too numerous, I could try to narrow them down by a location or time period.
I received 100 results in the historical newspaper collection: more than 50% were relevant to this recipe.
So, what’s the history of “Goodbye Turkey”? It’s a recipe from the makers of Minute Rice (General Foods). Food companies employ home economists who invent recipes that use their products in new ways to increase sales. These recipes are published in newspapers and magazines as well as recipe booklets. It makes sense that one issue home cooks have is what to do with leftover turkey, and this recipe provided one solution.
My typed version of this recipe for 6 or 24 servings appeared in old newspapers in 1960.
Look closely at this recipe.
You can see that the typed recipe card in my collection mimics the newspaper recipe. I like that the newspaper recipe makes the humble leftover seem like something grander than just an everyday leftover. Consider the description:
“This long-grain rice puffs up bright and light with good turkey flavor, blends seasonings, cheese and asparagus into a taste that makes guests say ‘um-m-m wonderful.’ Or make it for the family – they’ll think it’s a party!”
So that explains that typed recipe card. But what about the handwritten recipe card? By Thanksgiving 1963 there was an updated “Goodbye Turkey” recipe that includes condensed soup and some of the ingredients we find in the 1960 recipe: Minute Rice and asparagus. The soup substitutes for the cheese and flour found in the previous version of the recipe.
This new recipe feeds 4-6 people instead of the possible 24 servings of the previously published recipe.
One Day You’ll Be Ready to Say Goodbye Turkey!
This 1960s solution to turkey leftovers lives on like many age-old ideas for how to get rid of holiday leftovers. Online I found modern-day versions that referred to it as a 1970s or 1980s casserole, but it’s really 1960s. Newspapers continued to post the recipe in columns, sans the marketing, such as this 1983 recipe swap column from South Dakota. It calls for a casserole in which the first layer combines rice (notice it doesn’t call for Minute Rice), cheese, and turkey. Over that is a gravy with the addition of either asparagus or peas.
That original 1960s marketing recipe evolved over time as different cooks modified it, then the new versions of the recipe were published in the newspaper.
In 2005 a California newspaper reprinted that original 1960 recipe and a story from the reader who shared it. She remarked that in 1961 she opened the Denver Post and found the recipe. It became a family favorite that she had to retype because of how often that newspaper clipping got used.
Goodbye to You, Turkey!
Have you used the “Goodbye Turkey” recipe in your leftover meals? How do you get rid of your holiday leftovers? Let me know in the comments.