Weighing in at about 20 pounds, the turkey that many families put on the table at Thanksgiving tends to be excessively large.
These birds can be very hard to cook properly. A large bird spends a long time in the oven, meaning that lean, delicate parts like the breast tend to become dry and tough. Meanwhile, the legs and thighs tend to be undercooked: white meat cooks faster than dark meat. This could be one reason why many people simply like to pass on the turkey at the Thanksgiving table. However, more and more people are getting on board with an easy solution: rather than buy a large, unwieldy bird, they buy two small, 10-pound turkeys.
