The Disneyland Turkey Leg - Channeling The Inner Fred Flintstone

There are certainly some iconic foods around Disneyland, legends in their own time. There is the infamous churro of course, the Monte Cristo sandwich, the Little Red Wagon's corn dog, Mickey Mouse ice cream bars, but none of them probably stand up to legendary status of the Disneyland turkey leg. It's hard to explain but there seems to be kind of an addiction to these things. I once had a seat on a bench near the turkey leg cart at the Disneyland Hub and listened to the cast member attendant tell guest after disappointed guest that he was currently out of turkey legs and was expecting a delivery of more shortly.

I have to say, when it comes to turkey, I am not a leg man. Like most sane people, I go for the turkey breast. In fact, come Thanksgiving, I would have to say that the first turkey meat that goes into the day-after turkey soup is what comes off the legs. Once in a while, the Boy may gnaw on leg but I think its mostly for showing off.

That I recall, I have had a Disneyland turkey leg one time and it was wisely split among 3 people I think. Yes, it was juicy, smokey, salty, and quite good but still, I felt guilty about eating it. Never mind the nutritional facts. Turkey is healthy, right? Well, I think I read somewhere that the Disney parks legs have close to 1200 calories, a days worth of fat intake, and enough salt from the brine the legs are soaked in to last the normal human a few days. That should scare a few people off. My reservation about the turkey legs is that it makes me see an image of myself as some dark ages carnivore glutton or perhaps some sort of neanderthal man chomping down on a massive piece of meat with one hand tied behind my back. To me, there is just something that seems kind of primitive about eating a turkey leg. Maybe its from watching too many Fred Flintstone cartoons as a kid or seeing countless caricatures of King Henry VIII which almost always show him with a large turkey leg in hand.

I don't hold anything against anyone eating a turkey leg at Disneyland. They seem to enjoy themselves thoroughly as they gobble down (pun intended) the juicy legs. But if I were to eat one, my self-conscious self would be thinking that every one that passed by me would muttering to themselves "look at that pig eating that big ol' turkey leg". No, that's no good. I'll go get a corn dog instead. Handheld food on a stick trumps handheld food on a bone in the civility department.