A really, really big turkey

David Joles, Star Tribune

It exploded, exclaimed Rachel Portnoy, 17, of the 72-pound turkey cooked by her father, Rich, in a black T-shirt behind Rachel. They dubbed the bird Barry Bonds. I feel like I won the World Series, he said about finding the bird, fitting it in the oven and then tasting its surprisingly flavorful meat.

Thanksgiving is about family, but for the Portnoys, it's also about who cooks the largest turkey. A 72-pound bird means the contest is all over.

By Bill McAuliffe, Star Tribune

Last update: November 22, 2007 - 8:02 PM

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Rich Portnoy is a fairly small guy. But he has redefined "supersized."

Driven to win a long-standing competition with his sister, Portnoy prepared a 72-pound turkey for Thanksgiving. That's nearly five times the size of the average Thanksgiving turkey. It was bigger than the biggest turkey his sister has ever roasted -- by 25 pounds. It was even bigger than the family's golden retriever, Mocha -- not that he would ever think of roasting the dog.

So, to the winner go the spoils, and probably a lot of leftovers.

"It actually tastes pretty good!" Portnoy said Thursday, gloating a bit after he and two other men pulled the prodigious bird from his 36-inch-wide chef-caliber oven after 15 hours of roasting.

Big turkeys have long been a tradition in the Portnoy family. His father, Sid, of Peekskill, N.Y., loves turkey, even though he had never eaten it growing up. So he used to cook birds of 30 pounds or more years ago. More recently, Rich Portnoy and his sister, Andra, of Reston, Va., started competing to cook the largest bird.

Last year, she cooked a 47-pounder to take the lead. Rich Portnoy, who had only managed to find a 37-pounder -- while living in the nation's top turkey-producing state -- was inconsolable.

"A sore loser," his dad said, describing how Rich Portnoy reacted to the holiday phone call. "He wouldn't come up from the basement to talk to us."

This year, Rich Portnoy got help from the Minnesota Turkey Growers Association. They hooked him up with Gold Turkey Farms in Motley, Minn., which happened to have an 85-pound breeding tom. But at 59 weeks old, it was near the end of its useful life.

Portnoy bought the turkey for $30, put it, live and fully-feathered, into the back of the family's Honda, and drove it to a processor in Little Falls, Minn. There, it was made oven-ready at 72 pounds.

Portnoy and his wife, Charlene, invited 26 people to dinner Thursday. And because they weren't sure the big old tom would be edible, Rich Portnoy also cooked a 19-pound "backup turkey" on the back-yard grill.

The 72-pounder was featured throughout the day Thursday on CNN, delighting friends and relatives in the Portnoys' kitchen in south Minneapolis, but forcing Andra Portnoy in Virginia to concede defeat long-distance in the family turkey-stakes. She added that her brother's oven is too big for her to compete with.

"It's a relief," Rich Portnoy said. "I've finally retired."

Bill McAuliffe • 612-673-7646

Bill McAuliffe • mcaul@startribune.com

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