Talking turkey - its happiness and yours

While you’re still digesting your Thanksgiving dinner, mass-market producers will be readying their next batch of turkeys for the Christmas holiday feast. 

The birds, killed, most likely with a cut across the throat, will be plunged into a tank of scalding water - it's easier for a machine to pluck out feathers that are clumped and drenched. While they're still hot, they'll be gutted. Finally they'll get blast-chilled to cool them down fast.  

The whole process takes abut 20 minutes. And what you'll be buying to star on your next festive table is a creature with a breast Mae West would have admired. In life, that breast would have made the turkey so unnaturally top heavy it would barely have been able to walk, even had it lived in space generous enough to allow it a stroll.  

Its Playboy-centerfold physique would have been achieved in a mere 8 weeks or so of growth. And the poor bird will have been conceived through artificial insemination. The modern butterball’s massive breast makes mating naturally so difficult, a high proportion of eggs aren't fertile. 

Intensively farmed, and proudly sold with names like Broad Breasted White, these fleshy balloons will have been kept healthy with medication. Once they’ve been slaughtered, they’ll have needed saline and oil injections to make them tender enough to chew.  

And we’re anxious to put a stop to U.S. foie gras production on the grounds of cruelty? 

These are not the only turkeys you can choose to eat. Time was when America’s hostesses proudly bore to the table a New York Dressed turkey. 

This is the classification of a bird that's been hung without having had its innards removed and is delivered with some feathers still attached, to provide protection in passage between farm and store. It’s also more than likely a New York Dressed turkey will be an heirloom breed, rather than a mass-produced bird. 

The good news is you can still buy one (though at this late date, it may have to be for next year’s festivities. They get sold fast.) They’re raised by dedicated farmers and can be ordered at www.heritagefoodsusa.com and http://www.localharvest.org.

Farmers who take pride in bringing back turkeys with taste are depending upon ancient breeds prized for their texture, for the very different flavors of white versus dark meats, and for the natural marbling of fat that keeps them moist. 

To be granted to designation, these heritage turkeys, with names like American Bronze and Bourbon Red, must have scratched around outside for at least 120 days. In barns at night, each bird has 1.4 square feet of space. Routine medication is not allowed. 

They will have been reproduced naturally through self-breeding. A breeding hen will have a lifespan of 8 to 9 years, a tom will live for 3 to 5.  

Heritage turkeys must be at least 160 days old before they can be slaughtered.   

Understandably with all this care they cost far more than a mass-produced medicated butterball – roughly $10 a pound.

But we only have one or two turkey celebration feasts a year. So we may as well eat as best we can – for our and the turkeys’ sakes.

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