Turkey Recipes: Southern-Style Roast Turkey

Make a stuffing of stale bread. Cut the crusts from a small loaf, grate the crumb, brown crusts crisp, crush, sift and mix well with the gratings. Shred finely through it four ounces fresh suet, and a lump of butter the size of an egg. Add a tiny heart of celery cut small, half a tart apple also cut fine, two dozen fat raisins, seeded, halved, and soaked for twelve hours in whiskey to cover, salt, pepper, and paprika to taste. Mix well, stuff the turkey but not too tight. Put a handful in the crop space, and fasten the skin neatly over. Truss your turkey firmly, rub all over with soft fat, then sprinkle with salt and pepper, and set upon a rack in a deep roasting pan, pour half an inch of water in the bottom, cover tight, put in a hot oven, and roast for an hour, then slack heat and finish. The turkey will brown thus covered, and be tenderer and sweeter than if crisped uncovered. The pan will hold gravy better than can be made otherwise.

From "Dishes & Beverages of the Old South", by Martha McCulloch-Williams, 1913