Until about the middle of the last century, most...

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

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Until about the middle of the last century, most of the turkeys eaten on Thanksgiving would have been what we now call “heritage breeds,” including the Standard Bronze, Bourbon Red, White Holland, Naragansett, and Jersey Buff varieties. These turkeys are gorgeous, hardy creatures, developed in Europe and America over hundreds of years and rich in flavor. Though they are the ancestors to the Broad-Breasted White, a sort of made-up breed that arose in the 1960s with the advent of industrial turkey farms (the Broad-Breasted Bronze was mostly abandoned because its dark pinfeathers put off consumers), they bear little resemblance to that now ubiquitous bird in taste or texture.

Today more than 99 percent of turkeys sold in America come from the roughly 270 million raised on factory farms each year. These birds are bred to be so literally broad-breasted that by the time they are 8 weeks old, they are too fat to walk, much less procreate—every Broad-Breasted White on the market is the product of artificial insemination. They are kept in giant barns, given antibiotics to prevent disease, and fed constantly so that they reach maturity in almost half the time it takes a heritage turkey. The result is bland, mushy meat that we have come to equate with tenderness, but in reality processors inject the dressed birds with saline solutions and vegetable oils to improve “mouth feel” and keep the oversize breasts from drying out.

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I’m a vegetarian. I’ve also read a lot of articles just like this one. And every time I do, I wonder why there aren’t more people who opt-out of eating meat—or at the very least, the meat that comes from factory farms. In many cases it’s economically prohibitive, which I understand, but in lots of other cases it’s not. Even if you don’t pass on this kind of turkey for the sake of the bird, I’m surprised more folks don’t reject it in search of something that’s real, with real flavor. Isn’t that what food is supposed to be about?

I should also say that I grew up on a farm where my parents ranged truly free-range cattle, turkeys, and chickens (the animals lived outside and had free run of large portions of our property). Eventually I got really turned off to the entire idea of eating animals, but before I did, even at age 8 or 9, I could see and taste the different between chicken from the store and chicken from, well, the backyard. They’re birds of an entirely different feather (bad pun, but appropriate, no?).

Julia Reed’s history of the Thanksgiving turkey is like a fine meal. (via newsweek) (via debbiestier)