An Expensive Thanksgiving Turkey
By: Keith
Everyone is talking about Christmas now that Thanksgiving is behind us, but I’m still thinking about Thanksgiving. “Why?” You ask? Because I got to eat a 90 dollar turkey this past Thanksgiving! That’s why. Yes, I ate a 15lb turkey (or at least a portion of it) that cost someone at our dinner table, and I’m not saying who, a whopping 90 bucks. To be fair, if I wasn’t so hopelessly poor, I might have thought about buying a quality turkey, too, because why not, right? This turkey we all ate was quite good (as in delicious). You see, the turkey was what I would describe as a real bird rather than a sad, abused, fattened unnaturally, guilt inducing bird. It had, according to witnesses, been flying around the farm and living a typically, perhaps happy, turkey life until the day the aforementioned buyer showed up at the farm and made him into an ex turkey. I don’t know the specifics concerning the operation of the farm from whence the bird came, but I’ve been assured that the farmer cares about every one of his birds and spares no expense in their upkeep. That, I think, is how it ought to be. And that is obviously what made Humphrey (such a dignified bird should have a name I think) so expensive. Or are they hens? I don’t know. Perhaps it was a Katherine.
Verdict
It didn’t taste anything like a Butterball turkey. Don’t get me wrong, though. I would never have known the inferior nature of a grocery store turkey had I not had, at least once in my life, something to compare it to. Humphrey (or Katherine — someone clear this up for me!) had muscles and tasted, as I know now, like a turkey should taste. The dark bits tasted drastically different than the breast, and he was quite difficult to disassemble on the cutting board due to superior tendons that had previously, in life, been used for bird things like flying and ambulating. Unfortunately for me, however, starting next Thanksgiving, I will have to live with diminished expectations unless I can con this person into feeding me a 90 dollar turkey every year going forward — which is possible but unlikely.
My Suggestion:
At least once in your life you ought to eat a real turkey. If nothing else it will give you a greater awareness for the bastardization of our commercial food supply. I can see now why meat, years ago, was a luxury. Raising animals correctly and with some ethical standards is costly. Not many people could afford to eat it regularly (and is why gout was known as the rich person’s disease but is now undiscriminating).
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A $90 turkey– I would like to try that next time! So you’re saying this is more delicious?
Most turkeys are female, so you most likely had a hen for thanksgiving dinner. Male turkey, aka Toms, don’t grow up as fast and are usually used in commercial production like the production of deli meats. Either way, I’m sure that was a fantastic turkey. Mine wasn’t quite as much, about $50 for a 12 pounder, but there is a huge difference to getting from a farm that uses ethical farming practices than the mass produced butterballs of the world. Hope you and yours had a great Thanksgiving.
Thank you, PJ, for clearing that up. I can’t believe that’s something I never thought about before!