Turkeys have always had to worry about being broiled, baked orfried during the Thanksgiving season, but there’s anotherless-known terrible fate that may await them …

The trash can.

Not being thrown away in a trash can, but being cooked in atrash can.

Brookhaven resident Randy Jordan said his father showed him theprocess years ago. And while he’s not a big turkey fan, he’ll eat a”trash can turkey.”

He admits it’s still a little odd to talk to guests about it.Usually, Jordan said, people do a double take when he says he’scooking a trash can turkey.

“I get that reaction a lot,” he said with a laugh. “People arelike, ‘You’re going to cook it in a what?'”

But with a good trash can and about two hours, the trash canturkey can be a reality, Jordan said.

First, he injects the bird with a mixture that includes strainedItalian salad dressing and Tony Cachere’s injecting butter. Whenthe turkey is rubbed down with vegetable oil, he sprinkles TonyCachere’s Creole seasoning all over it, making sure to cover itevenly.

Then it’s trash can time.

Jordan said he spreads tin foil and drives a metal stake intothe ground. There is also a cross-shaped stake that goes inside theturkey and connects to the first stake to keep the turkey off theground.

The trash can is lowered and charcoal is clustered around itsbase and on the top. The turkey then cooks for about an hour andforty-five minutes, Jordan said.

For anyone considering trash can turkey, Jordan advised gettinga new metal can for the process.

“If you have a new trash can, you have to wash it out reallywell, because those chemicals and oils from the factory will get inthere and make the turkey taste bad,” Jordan said.

He then perhaps stated the obvious.

“You don’t want to use an old trash can,” said Jordan, who hasused the same can for several years.

And trash can turkey doesn’t have to be just a Thanksgivingtradition.

“We do it whenever we just want to have a good turkey,” hesaid.

Which raises the question: What else can you cook in a trashcan?

“I’ve always wanted to try a hindquarter of a deer,” Jordansaid. “If we kill one this year that’ll be the project. As good asthe turkey is, I know it’ll make that deer meat good.”

As far as chickens or pot roast or other possible trash candelicacies, Jordan said there’s only one way to find out.

“I guess it would be a lot of trial and error to figure out howlong to let it cook,” he said. “You can’t pick it up and look in itonce you get it started because you’ve got charcoal all over it. Soyou’d just have to figure it out.”