Turkeys are on my mind this cold, misty morning (it really is pretty the way the mist clings to the neighbor’s cedar trees). Yesterday’s morning was full of similar beauty, but like many others this week, I was focused on getting my Thanksgiving meal birds in a row. What a luxury to not only have to locate a turkey we could feel good about (I’m thinking of last year’s Irish turkey hunt), but to actually have a choice! For the co-op was offering four different organic birds, one of whom had had black feathers in its previous life (Before Roasting). Recalling the one heritage turkey we had been fortunate to partake of before, I thought that an easy choice, for we have much to be thankful for.
It was easy to accept the bagger’s offer of help out to the car, given the way the cart groaned going around corners. With the bird and seven bags of groceries ensconced in the back of the car, I set out for home. One of the fallouts of our year abroad is that the radio antenna got snapped off my car, victim to a well-intended car wash before our return. What this means in practical terms is that I can no longer listen to the classical music station, and am relegated to pop (though I have to say, there are some very impressive lyricists in the up-and-coming generation). This also means I’m getting ads for a different demographic: instead of mattresses and Bose headphones, I’m getting supermarket and TV program ads. Albertson’s informs me that they’re thinking of me during these trying times, and offering the centerpiece of my Thanksgiving table for a mere 27 cents a pound! QFC takes a different tack, stressing the quality of their birds, which can hardly compete at a whopping 29 cents a pound.
It’s hard not to compare the bird in my backseat (while I’ve been shouting back at the radio, it’s been demurely quiet all through these ads) with these poor creatures. The first thing I noticed about it was its color. It had some. It wasn’t a pallid yellow-y white, but a variation of colors. I salivated at the thought of the incredible dark meat this free-range fellow will bring to my plate. It’s also a different shape, not scrawny by far, but longer, and not dominated by those Dolly Parton breasts so common in the factory-bred white birds.
Needless to say, its price tag reflected all its potential tastiness: this tom was priced at $3.99 a pound, or more than the tenfold of its supermarket cousins. Unconscionable, they scream; taking advantage of the consumer! I must be crazy, you think. But if anything’s crazy, it’s a ten pound bird for less than the cost of a gallon of gas. It makes sense to me to reward the farmer who went to the trouble of sourcing a bird with a lineage, one who will do well in the climate where it will live, and then makes sure that its short life is spent pursuing its nature, scratching bugs and whatnot out of the earth, and gaggling about with others of its kind. I am reminded that the wild turkey is an intelligent and noble beast, and would be our national bird if Ben Franklin had had his way.
Some digging reveals that the 27-cent bird is an in-house brand, and that price only applies to smaller birds and folks with a customer loyalty card. Everyone else must pony up $1.29 a pound. But I still have trouble making sense of the math for the big box bird: how can they ship a bird halfway across the country—most of them come from a warm clime—and sell them for so little? Are they packed into such massive factories that the economy of scale is so great? And where, pray tell, is the farmer in all this? Is he making anything? It seems unlikely that there are any farmers for these factory birds, only button-pushing employees of a large multinational corporation, many of whom are likely not making a living wage.
If you haven’t lost your appetite yet, read on. For the real reason I want my colorful bird is because I want to share my meal. If I were a filmmaker, I would have a cute graphic of me and my family, and a few friends (maybe I could use cute avatars) all standing together with smiles on our faces. If we brought out the cheap turkey, two of us would walk away with frowns on our faces. You see, two of us are allergic to antibiotics; eating a factory-farmed animal can’t happen without making us ill. And when we read the label, one more would leave, as she can’t eat the corn-based food starch it’s injected with. The remaining five would still be hopeful, but one of them would have to place a call to the 800 number on the label to determine if the “modified food starch” or “natural flavorings” contains any gluten, which would exclude all but one. One lonely turkey diner, seven others with only Brussels sprouts (tasty, but a bit meager) on their plates.
Perhaps we are the canaries in the mine shaft, or perhaps just the unfortunate ones who have tied the symptoms to the cause. But either way, $2 a pound seems a small price to pay for the joy of the communal meal, one in which we can all partake, including the farmer, for whom we are very thankful.
