Gobble, gobble

by Deanna Nelson | Nov 23, 2013 | blog | 1 comment

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Today our Thanksgiving turkey is blissfully enjoying his last day wandering this earth. Tomorrow, by late morning, he will be snug in his freezer wrap. Too macabre, you say? Perhaps. But since I still have a bit of carnivore blood and also a rigid understanding as to what needs to be on a proper Thanksgiving table, I will be eating that fine bird on Thursday.

I haven’t been entirely unthinking about the selection of our Thanksgiving bird. It needs to be tasty. It should be wholesome (read: not filled with saline, hormones and antibiotics). I’d like to think it should have had a pleasant life. When I started searching for a suitable candidate, I added more requirements: It shouldn’t need to be trucked across the continent to my table—it should be a local bird, supporting local farms. And also, because I am wholly in favor of diversity in the genome, I wanted a heritage breed. As my research informed me, the best way to save heritage breeds, is quite simply to eat them. And so we will.

The selection this year is another Midget White. Midgets are listed as a “critical” breed. We were fortunate to have our first Midget White a couple of years ago and it was quite simply delicious.

Next task, tracking down a fabulous brine to soak the bird in prior to roasting…

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Midget White, heritage breed turkey