The National Library of Australia has just posted a delightful new
article by Ashley Sterne.
"Uncle
Peter Carves the Turkey" was originally published by the Nepean Times (Penrith NSW)
on December 23rd 1922.
Uncle Peter Carves the Turkey
By
Ashley Sterne
Do you happen to know a piece
entitled "When Father Carves the Duck," which was very popular some
years ago?
I can't quite remember whether it
was the title of a recitation, a trombone solo, or an opera, but -- be that as
it may -- I know that the feats wrought by father on the duck were a mere
flea-bite in the ocean compared with the doughty deeds of derring-do which, in
the days of my youth, my dear old Uncle Peter used to perform upon the carcass
of our Christmas turkey.
Uncle Peter, I must explain was a
bachelor, and as he had got the complaint pretty badly it follows that he
possessed all a bachelor's primitive notions of carving.
In short, without the help of a
carving-chart he couldn't be trusted to carve anything more complicated than a
curry or a very quiet and docile haggis.
Uncle's Christmas Present
You will naturally wonder how it came
about that Uncle Peter was ever permitted under the Lunacy Laws to carve anything
requiring so expert a knowledge of animal dissection as a turkey.
Well, the fact is, the turkey always
formed Uncle Peter's Christmas present to us all; and as he invariably dined
with.us on Christmas Day, and, moreover, always insisted on carving his own
gift, you will readily see that any opposition to his wish would most certainly
have resulted in a painful and distressing domestic scene, culminating in
Uncle Peter walking out of the house, with the bone of contention (so to speak)
under his arm, and a festoon of sausages round his neck.
Let me describe what usually
happened.
When the dining-room door opened, and
a panting domestic was observed staggering into the room with the most
corpulent bird which the turkey mongers of poultry market could produce, Uncle
Peter, carving knife and fork in hand, would rise from his chair with all the
dignity and impressiveness of some ancient Arch-Druid about to perform a solemn
sacrifice.
The dish in front, of him,Uncle
Peter would commence the revels by dropping the carving-tools into the gravy
and sousing everybody in his immediate vicinity. These he would retrieve with the
help of two spoons, the knife-sharpener, and the servant, and absent-mindedly proceed
to wipe them all -- not counting the servant -- upon our best damask table-cloth.
Carving-Knife Draws First Blood
Suddenly he would discover that the
turkey had been placed on the dish the wrong way round, when, instead of
revolving the dish, he would try to twiddle the bird round with the carving tools,
and push it off the dish onto the table, where it usually knocked over a vase
of flowers or a cruet.
Then he would endeavor to drag it
back again by jabbing the fork into it, but as he invariably harpooned it in the
part where the stuffing was, and as the stuffing naturally crumbled to pieces
under the strain, the first part of the enthralling performance would end by
Uncle Peter seizing the turkey by the legs and hauling it back on to the dish
by powerful wrist-work.
With a reassuring smile on his face
and quite oblivious that he had been doing anything out of the ordinary, Uncle
Peter would recommence his self-imposed labour of love with redoubled ardour.
He would drive the fork into the
turkey's works with such violence that he couldn't get it out again, and in his
efforts to free that implement he would manage once more to heave the unhappy
bird from the dish, when, suspended in mid-air like the sword of D--ocles, the
fork would come away suddenly, the turkey would execute a spinning nose-dive,
crash badly, and then either bounce on to somebody's lap or else roll under the
table.
Of course, by this time the turkey
had lost something of its first fresh bloom.
It resembled a railway accident more nearly than a turkey, but this
weird metamorphosis neither deterred nor discouraged Uncle Peter. The missing bird being again restored to his
arms, as it were, he would take a long drink and a short rest just to get his
second wind, and return to the assault, with all the energy and determination
of one who is but "baffled to fight better."
Like a Film Hero
He would begin Act III. by putting a
new edge on the carving-knife, and in the process cut himself so badly that the
entire family would be frantically rushing about the house looking for cobwebs
to stop the bleeding. There were usually plenty upon the turkey by this time,
but we never thought of looking there. Meanwhile,
Uncle Peter and the servant would be groping about the floor on their hands and
knees looking for the top of his thumb.
After a delay of a quarter of an
hour spent in bandaging him, Uncle Peter, sternly refusing to let any of the
elders relieve him of his job, would once more arise with that look of grim
determination on his face such as one usually associates with William Farnum at
the moment when he pushes a steam roller over and rescues the frail girl who
lies securely gagged and handcuffed in its path.
How precisely he ever managed to do
it nobody over quite knew; but after we had all become so faint from fasting
that we had attained that condition of acute internal anguish which makes the
act of eating about as pleasurable as pulling off a porous plaster, Uncle Peter
would have succeeded in rending his victim violently asunder, giving it the
appearance of having been thoroughly well blasted with dynamite, and the servant
would be handing round the mangled debris.
By this time the turkey and
everything else would be stone-cold; the gravy of the consistency of tooth
paste, the sausages like bits of non-skid tyres, the stuffing congealed into a
curious substance resembling reinforced concrete both in appearance and
texture, and the vegetables only fit to be mashed up and given to the
rabbits. As for the tablecloth, it
looked as if a football match had just been played on it.
Pulpits and Pork-Pies
This all happened many years ago, and
upon occasions when, I am afraid, my sense of hunger overcame my sense of
humour. In my maturer years, however, I
am able fully to appreciate the ripe, rich humour which characterised Uncle
Peter's performance. Uncle Peter is still alive and carving -- he will
cheerfully undertake to carve anything from a pulpit to a pork-pie -- and if any
staid body of individuals -- say, the League of Nations -- wants their Christmas
dinner-table enlivened by a thoroughly hilarious "turn," they might
do worse (though not much) than invite Uncle Peter to pop along and dismember
the turkey.
