Emergency turkey question!

Take its temperature. If it is still below room temp you are probably OK.

Sorry. I would toss it. Even if the center is a safe temp, the outer layer won’t be. Eating it would be asking for trouble.

@angelaclaire could be right, but I’m a risk.taker. If you cook it so that the inner temp is safe, they outer temp will have been beyond safe.

If it were at “room temperature” in my house, it would be fine for weeks. Do you heat your kitchen up pretty hot?

Don’t mess around. If it’s been out for 2 days, it’s real dicey.

Did it start out frozen? The food safety experts would tell you not to eat if it has been out for more than four hours.

This doesn’t really answer your question, but it made me think of these people I know. they left a turkey in their car, which was parked in their garage, for a month while they were in Hawaii. The turkey EXPLODED. Their car smelled so bad it was considered totalled by the appraiser they had some take a look at it. he also puked upon smelling the interior of the car.

That happened to me with the bodies of a couple of nurses I left in the trunk. Forgot all about them.

Huh. I got a ‘great question’?! That makes me feel a little better about being a numbskull… yes, it was frozen solid to begin with; room temp. here, this time of year is about 60 degrees; if I had an enemy I guess I could put it in their car, but it’s only about 40 out today & raining. Maybe I should just grind it up as dog food- their systems are capable of dealing w/lots of stuff that makes people ill.

@dpworkin , how terribly unfortunate. i’m sorry for your…loss?

Oh, I was done with them.

but were you done with your car?

It was a write-off.

Take its temperature. If it is still cold I’d cook it now. You’ll be cooking it for a few hours at 350 F. That will kill anything. Don’t waste it.

If you are still afraid after you cook it give it to the animals in your neighborhood.

If it was hard frozen, it’s probably okay to cook now, but you cannot re-freeze it

@dpworkin , well, that was a close one, then wasn’t it. At least you came out on top!

oh, my this is getting rediculous.

It is getting to be sort of a turkey.

haha, you nailed that one.
and probably some other things, but we won’t talk about that.

Throw it out. Sorry.

Thanks everyone for the answers… discretion being the better part of valour, I decided to toss the turkey instead of cookies.

A new turkey will cost you four Starbucks lattes. Or come to my fields and shoot the wild ones. They look plumped up now.

This made me think of the movie Shogun when the guy hung the bird out to let it age before he ate it. The natives found it offensive but were conflicted because they couldn’t be disrespectful to The Captain.
Finally one brave soul cut down the rotting bird then was exicuted for his disrespect.
It makes me wonder if people died from rotton meat all the time back in those days and didn’t know why they were dieing?

Cook it and eat it.