On 11/29/2019 08:47 AM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
I was really wondering if others had noticed the already cooked turkeys
getting smaller.

No data for comparison since I never bought a pre-cooked turkey. In fact
I haven't cooked one in several years but it wasn't that big a deal when
I did. I had the opposite problem, finding a small enough bird that I
wouldn't be eating turkey for two weeks.

Of course some people can screw up royally. When aluminum foil started
getting popular one of my aunts interpreted the aluminum foil tent as
wrapping the bird in a foil cocoon. We ate around noon and went over to
her house in the evening. She had a large extended family, all of which
were in a bad mood since the turkey was way overdue. When it was finally
pronounced edible it was more steamed turkey than the traditional version.

Traditional holiday should preserve tradition. When the turkeys came
with popups indicating they were done my mother approached the
innovation with extreme suspicion and insisted on the tried and true
technique of wiggling the drumstick.