Nearly Four Decades Later, The Butterball Hotline Survives
The Butterball Turkey Hotline still thrives even in the era of the Internet.
Having trouble with your turkey this morning? The New York Times reports that the helpful folks at Butterball are still here to help:
NAPERVILLE, Ill. — The internet should have killed the Butterball Turkey Talk-Line years ago, but all the Google searches, YouTube videos and turkey tweets in the world can’t match the small-bore magic that happens here on the fifth floor of a suburban office building 34 miles southwest of Chicago.
Each year from Nov. 1 through Christmas Eve, 50 Butterball experts ease more than 100,000 nervous cooks through their Thanksgiving meal, either over the phone or, more recently, through text, email or live chat sessions.
The talk line started 38 years ago as a marketing gimmick, and has grown into a seasonal slice of Americana as sturdy and reassuring as a Midwestern grandmother with a degree in home economics, which many of the experts are.
“People can be just paralyzed with fear,” said Phyllis Kramer, who first took the seasonal job 17 years ago after retiring as a home economist. “All they usually need is someone who takes the time to be personal and sympathetic.”
Ms. Kramer embraces the talk-line ethos, which requires a cheery, solution-oriented and nonjudgmental demeanor. But who doesn’t love a good kitchen disaster story? It doesn’t take much to coax the experts into spilling some tea on America’s turkey illiteracy.
Their version of comedy gold often centers on thawing, the most common topic among callers. People ask if they can thaw a turkey in the dishwasher, under an electric blanket or in the backyard pool. One man threw a wrapped turkey in the bath water with his two children.
Here’s a classic: A man called in, worried about whether his bird would thaw in time. “What state is your turkey in?” the expert asked, trying to do a little culinary detective work. “Florida,” he answered.
Then there was the woman who wanted to know if she could check the turkey temperature with a fever thermometer, another who used dish soap to wash the turkey and the newlywed who called from a closet, fearful that her mother-in-law would discover she didn’t know how to roast a turkey.
Ms. Kramer’s favorite call came five years ago, when a group she suspects was fueled by a few holiday cocktails complained that the 21-pound turkey they had just pulled from the oven had barely any meat. She was puzzled, but then had a moment of what she called divine inspiration. “Turn the turkey over,” she suggested. They had cooked it breast-side down.
“The internet isn’t going to tell them that,” Ms. Kramer said
As noted the “hotline” started out as a marketing gimmick, but quickly became a national form of Thanksgiving Google before Google was really a thing:
It was born in 1981, when Pam Talbot, an executive of the Chicago public relations firm founded by the feisty former journalist Daniel J. Edelman, pitched the idea as a way to help deal with what she tagged “turkey trauma.”
The first year, six women fielded 11,000 calls on a toll-free line — no small thing in an age before unlimited calling plans and mobile phones. Their reference material was contained in small binders.
Today, the experts, all of whom possess some kind of culinary or nutritional background, have an elaborate database of turkey tips and recipes at their fingertips, with links at the ready to send out via text and social media. Last year, Butterball loaded answers spoken in the experts’ voices into Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant.
They do their best to keep up with the trends. Last year, there were a lot of questions about Instant Pots and sous vide. This year, spatchcocking and air frying are popular. And always, there are questions about deep-frying.
Still, the people in headsets remain steadfast in the belief that the company’s preferred method is best: Coat the turkey with oil or cooking spray. Use a shallow roasting pan with a rack, a bed of aromatic vegetables or, in a pinch, a coil of foil. Cook at 325 degrees. A 10- to 18-pound turkey will take three to three-and-a-half hours if you don’t open the oven to baste it, which isn’t necessary anyway. The thigh should reach 180 degrees and the breast 170 degrees, which you achieve by placing a foil tent over the breast in the last half-hour.
The Edelman company still helps coordinate the talk line, which has so embedded itself in popular culture that it’s namechecked regularly on talk shows, and once worked its way into the fictional Oval Office on “The West Wing.”
“It’s the most brilliant piece of branding,” said Joanna Saltz, the editorial director of Delish and House Beautiful. “In the day and age of automated everything, getting a live human on the phone on the most culinarily challenging day of the year? It’s so genius. It’s like calling the police.”
You can, of course, find most of the same information that you’d get from the Butterball hotline on the Internet but the fact that it survives and still gets tens of thousands of calls a year during the holiday season is likely a sign that there are some things the Internet can’t do. For someone preparing Thanksgiving dinner facing a turkey crisis, the idea of searching the Internet may seem daunting, but calling up an 800 number and talking to someone, anyone is probably a little comforting. It also seems like a fun job to have.
Heck, even the President of the United States needs it from time to time:
So if you find yourself stuck with a bunch of hungry guests and an uncooked turkey, you know where to call. If it’s good enough for Joe Bethersonton, it’s good enough for you.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, proves you’re finally an adult like successfully roasting your first turkey.
For all the info available online, it’s faster, and easier, to get a specific answer from a person than to look it up. Not to mention a person won’t spray you with a million different possibilities when you’re short on time.
BTW, I’ve never roasted a turkey or a chicken. It’s one of the things I want to try someday. Part of the problem is I cook for myself only most of the time, and even a whole chicken is too much for one person.
So, do I need to remove the plastic wrap, or can I just poke holes on it and toss the bird in the microwave for five minutes? 😉
@CSK:
This is true, although when I did it I had access to my personal turkey hotline in the form of my Mom on a speakerphone.
Nearly every couple, as young marrieds or partners, has a disaster story of the first turkey that the (almost always) the wife/gf cooked. Ours involved an apartment full of friends and a turkey that wouldn’t cook, due to several reasons. All was well, while my then wife fretted the rest of us snarfed down whatever snacks were around, drank, smoked dope and played music. It ended up being a memorable day, though dinner ended up being 3 hours late.
@Doug Mataconis: And didn’t you feel like a real grown-up afterward?
It ain’t Thanksgiving until I see the “West Wing” link from Doug. Thanks, friend. And someday, someday, the Twins will beat the Yankees in post-season.
I’m doing a duck this year, roasted on a rack over root veggies, flipping every thirty minutes. (Who would have thought I’d be doing check-sums on a bird at Thanksgiving.) Stuffing is chanterelles + onions + pita bread + leftover brown rice. Add roasted Brussels sprouts and a nice glass of white wine.
@Kathy: You can always roast a whole bird, eat the bits off it that you want, then cover with aluminium foil and shove in the fridge. I usually nibble bits and pieces for the next few days, then dissect for further use: carve off all the meat to shove into the freezer, then use the bones to make chicken soup. You can either go directly to the bones –> chicken soup, or whack the carcass into smaller pieces and throw in the freezer for processing later.
@grumpy realist:
I usually get a turkey around Christmas from the company. I give it to my mom, who’ll roast it sometime between March and August (meantime it waits patiently in the freezer). I take the leftovers and make enchiladas, or some other dish which would normally use chicken.
@Sleeping Dog: Our only story was not a disaster, as the turkey could be rinsed off. My wife pulled the thawed turkey out of the reefer and was washing it in the sink. Turned away for a minute and turned back to find our small cat, less than half the weight of the turkey, spread eagled on top of the bird looking like she’d died and gone to heaven.
@gVOR08:
She probably thought, “Finally the weird, hairless ones caught something!” And figured one, albeit large, bird was fair repayment for the dozens of small birds and rodents she’d presented over time.
@gVOR08: One year my mother ended up spending Thanksgiving with friends in the south of France. Not being able to get a turkey, she substituted a guinea hen. While prepping for the oven, she turned away for a minute and the next thing she saw was the family cat dragging the guinea hen out of the kitchen….