NYT -- The Hunt for a Truly Grand Turkey, One That Nature Built
[Even I think this article is a bit long ...]
November 21, 2001
The Hunt for a Truly Grand Turkey, One That Nature Built
By MARIAN BURROS
TOMORROW you'll probably be joining
millions of Americans in a true
Thanksgiving tradition: slathering giblet
gravy over those dry, tasteless slices of turkey
and tucking into the really good stuff — the
dressing and sweet potatoes, the cranberry
relish and pumpkin pie.
I'm here to tell you there's hope.
The turkey you'll be eating could never exist in
nature. After 50 years of overengineering, it
has morphed into a bizarre, ungainly beast that
can no longer run, fly or even lay eggs. And all
in the name of progress: what it can do is
supply copious quantities of white breast meat
at the expense of the dark meat from the leg
and thigh.
But there is a movement afoot — among
conservationists who understand that
endangered animals can be saved if a
commercial market is created for them — to
revive the breeds of turkey that once made
people anticipate the Thanksgiving bird with
pleasure because of its deep, rich flavor. The
hitch, for the consumer, is that the farmers
will raise only as many of these magnificent
turkeys as they know they can sell, and they
are not inexpensive. And because they are
raised to order, orders must be placed near the
beginning of the year.
While you're working your way through that
big-breasted manufactured creation tomorrow,
think of the treat in store for next year. Picture
yourself, carving set in hand, beside a perfect
Norman Rockwell turkey, with long legs and a
taut golden brown breast. A moist, juicy turkey
suffused with flavor, something you can sink
your teeth into. People might actually ask for
seconds.
The conservationist movement includes the
American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, an
organization that works to preserve rare breeds
and genetic diversity in livestock and poultry;
the Society for the Preservation of Poultry
Antiquities; and a few hundred farmers around
the country who raise small numbers of old
breeds and have been trying to save them for
years. And now Slow Food U.S.A., which is
part of an international nonprofit education
organization that promotes the relationship
between environment and gastronomy, has
joined the effort. Among its aims are saving foods that are part of America's
heritage and endangered by agricultural standardization, like the Delaware Bay
oyster, hand-parched wild rice from Minnesota and Wisconsin, and now, the
American turkey. It has adopted four breeds near extinction — the Narragansett,
the Bourbon Red, the Jersey Buff and the Standard Bronze — for its modern
version of Noah's Ark. Next week it will announce the induction of the heritage
turkeys, all of them native Americans, into its Ark U.S.A., with the hope that
giving them a higher profile will increase demand.
"Ark products are food products that will be saved through consumption," said
Peter Martins, the president of Slow Food U.S.A. "Ark foods need to find work,
and the best way is to be an everyday part of our diets. We want to increase
demand of these products by increasing awareness."
After years of selective breeding, only one breed of turkey, the aptly named
Broadbreasted White, remains in large-scale production in the United States. For
about 30 years, it has been the breeding stock owned by the three major
companies, Hybrid Turkeys of Ontario, Canada; British United Turkeys of
America in Lewisburg, W. Va.; and Nicholas Turkey Breeding Farms, Sonoma,
Calif. A blowzy specimen with short stubby legs, its disproportionate supply of
white meat has come at the expense of taste and texture. It's stupid to boot.
The joke about turkeys drowning in the rain may actually have some basis in
fact. Glenn Drowns, secretary-treasurer of the Society for the Preservation of
Poultry Antiquities, and owner of the Sand Hill Preservation Center in Calamus,
Iowa, a preservation farm, is infuriated by the degradation of the turkey. "The
commercial guys say they have to keep the turkeys in buildings because they'd
drown in the rain," he said. "It makes my blood pressure boil. Next year I'm
going to raise some of them to see if they are that far gone."
Because most Americans aren't old enough to have eaten the old-fashioned
turkey, they have no idea what they are missing. The rest of us just forgot over
the years, lulled into thinking that new is improved. Tasting the four heritage
turkeys against two Broadbreasted Whites, one of which was free range,
reminded me why the Thanksgiving turkey was so eagerly looked forward to 50
years ago, and why, today, cooks have had to dream up dozens of ways of
making it taste better.
The heritage turkeys I roasted were those chosen for inclusion in the Slow Food
Ark because they were once in large-scale production and have delicious meat.
"They can compete with the commercial turkey, but the meat is more in the legs
and thighs, because your muscles grow where you work them," Mr. Drowns
said.
And unlike the industrialized turkey, which can barely walk, much less run, these
turkeys forage all over the pasture. They can also fly, another activity the
industrial turkey can no longer enjoy. Of the four heritage turkeys I roasted, the
Bourbon Red was the most delicious, with more flavorful white meat than the
other three and deeply flavored dark meat — the essence of turkey.
But the differences among them were small, and a true test would require
consumption of more than one of each turkey. All of them had richer, fuller
flavor — especially in the dark meat — and were much juicier than the industrial
birds, including the free-range version. The heritage birds also have texture, not
as in tough but as in firm. The meat does not fall apart in your mouth, a
characteristic of both industrial birds I roasted. The industrial turkeys were also
very dry and had what might be called a ghost of turkey taste.
I also tried two Eastern wild turkeys from Quattro Farms, which sells them at
the Union Square Greenmarket on Saturdays. They too have more flavor than the
supermarket turkey, but they are much smaller — 7 to 12 pounds — than the
four heritage turkeys, which weighed 14 to 18 pounds. Mr. Drowns says it's
easy to tell the heritage and the industrial turkeys apart. "I could pick out the
industrial bird from the one raised naturally even blindfolded," he said, "even with
the best chef in the world cooking." The difference in taste is not just because of
genetics but also because of their varied diet and their ability to graze, hunting
and pecking for the grubs and bugs and grasses that make them taste good. Their
firmness is due to their exercise. They also appear to have a nutritional advantage
over industrial birds: because they eat more grass they have higher levels of the
good omega-3 fatty acids, which may protect the heart and bring down levels of
unhealthful triglycerides.
The common ancestor for all heritage breeds is the wild turkey, native to these
shores. Wild turkeys went from Central America to Europe with the first
explorers. Then they were imported to North America by English settlers as the
black Spanish turkey, which was bred with the wild North American turkey. The
Standard Bronze was the result and the other breeds followed: the Narragansett
from Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island; the Bourbon from Bourbon County, Ky.,
and the Jersey Buff from New Jersey.
Fifty years ago, when Americans were still eating turkeys raised nearby, there
were millions of those birds. Paula Johnson, who raises heritage turkeys in Las
Cruces, N.M., recently surveyed the heritage turkey population. She said there
are only about 3,800 of them left, raised mostly for show. Only about 23 farms
have flocks with more than 100 turkeys. At the moment, only the owners and a
few of their lucky neighbors can enjoy them for holiday dinner.
The disappearance of the endangered breeds came to public attention with the
release of a census in 1998, when the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy
began an intensive campaign warning of the imminent extinction of those
turkeys. The conservancy lists the Buff, Narragansett and Bronze as critical,
which means there are fewer than 500 breeding birds in North America. Bourbon
Reds are classified as rare, with fewer than 1,000 breeding birds.
With only one breed of turkey available in significant quantities, it is possible that
50 years from now there will be no turkeys at all for Thanksgiving dinner. "The
gene pool is so narrow in the industrial turkey that they are beginning to notice
heart problems, leg failure, suppressed immune systems," Mr. Drowns said. "If
you don't have a gene pool in the natural mating turkeys, you are talking about
coming up with something else to eat for Thanksgiving 40 or 50 years from
now. The industrial turkeys could be wiped out by a virus, by bacteria or just
plain stress."
Commercial turkeys can no longer breed on their own; they are artificially
inseminated. They don't lay eggs; their large breasts make it impossible for them
to mount. Pamela Marshall, who breeds heritage chickens and turkeys in Amenia,
N.Y., paints a vivid picture. "It's like having two footballs mate," she said. The
American Livestock Breeds Conservancy says that of the 10 species of domestic
farm animals that are the focus of their work, "none is more genetically eroded
than the turkey."
Donald Bixby, executive director of the conservancy said: "With industrial
turkeys, everyone is breeding for a narrow range of production characteristics.
So, as a result, they are losing survival characteristics. That's why they are
having a hard time breeding, why their biological fitness is declining, why there is
infertility, bone and joint problems, ruptured aortas, hypertension."
In other words, the modern day turkey, in addition to being dry and tasteless, is a
physical wreck. These turkeys are also bred to be ready for slaughter when they
are three to three and a half months old, which explains why they are so dry.
"When you shorten the life of the bird, it never matures and never puts on the
layer of fat, and that's why these commercial birds taste real dry and why they
are injected with liquid," said Frank Reese, who raises Bourbon Reds, Bronzes
and Narragansetts on his ranch in Lindsborg, Kan. Like others raising rare
breeds, Mr. Reese sells his birds when they are five or six months old and have
acquired some fat.
The modern turkey has also been bred to look perfect, Ms. Marshall said. "In the
1950's and 60's we developed into an antiseptic nation and wanted perfection —
the perfect white breast," she said. "As people have become more aware of what
goes into food, how it is produced, they have become more tolerant of
imperfections like dark pinfeathers in dark birds. Now people are more
concerned with the quality of the food."
For many, that has meant years of taking extreme measures to add flavor and
moisture to the turkey.
Imagine a day when it would no longer be necessary to spend hours soaking the
bird in brine. Deep-frying turkeys could be saved for warm weather, when the
task can be safely accomplished outside, reducing the odds of burning down the
house. The chances of pneumonia would decrease, as outdoor grilling in a
freezing rain would no longer be necessary. Poisoning the dinner guests would be
significantly reduced, because the technique of cooking the turkey at very low
temperature overnight could be discarded. So could the one that calls for cooking
at very high temperature and setting off the smoke detector.
Talk about being thankful.
Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company |
