Posted on 11/17/2018 9:33:38 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
Small birds are having a big moment.
Tiny turkeys will increasingly grace Thanksgiving tables next week, thanks to the millennial generation’s ongoing campaign to remake American gastronomy.
The holiday depicted by Norman Rockwell—Grandma showing off a cooked bird so plump it weighs down a banquet plate—is still common. But smaller families, growing guilt over wasteful leftovers and a preference for free-range fowl have all played roles in the emergence of petite poultry as a holiday dinner centerpiece.
“People are starting to understand it’s not natural to grow turkeys up to 30 pounds,” said Ariane Daguin, co-founder and owner of D’Artagnan LLC, a wholesale and e-commerce food company in Union, New Jersey. “In general, that means they were penned up with no room to move around, and that’s why they’re fat like that.”
There are signs that wee birds are in greater demand. Inventories of whole hens, which are smaller than males, are down 8.3 percent from a year ago, the latest U.S. Department of Agriculture data show. Whole toms, the males, are up 6.9 percent.
Don’t call them capons. They’re not castrated chickens. Nor are they chicks. They’re not babies. They’re just turkeys that weigh in the neighborhood of six pounds. Bell & Evans is working with a breeder to make tiny turkeys that consumers will eat all year.
Owner Scott Sechler said the new breed, which isn’t yet sold publicly, “fills out nicely,” unlike other undersized birds, which can be bony.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Nothing Better!
Beau hunted turkey for the first time this past Spring. 15 minutes in, he bagged a 30# Tom! He’s like, ‘That was easy!’ LOL!
He butchered and de-boned the thighs and the breasts. So delicious! I have ONE thigh left to use up.
To heck with the relatives. Don't like them and don't like their holiday dishes. We learned that lesson. Stay home and have what you like. Much more enjoyable and relaxing.
What is that, about 10,000 birds? LOL!
Try trash can turkey. It gives smoked a run for its money. Look it up online.
I did a test-run of Prime Rib a few weeks back. I’d never tried one before - SUCCESS!
I have another that I’m going to do up for Christmas, as it’s at my house this year.
Can’t wait! :)
WOW!
I’m going to raise meat birds in the future and raise a Tom Turkey for us one of these years, too!
The beef steers we raised were named, ‘Dinner’ and ‘Supper.’ The next one is going to be named, ‘Weber.’ LOL!
“Juice the large watermelons for drinks later on. Pickle the rind. Waste not, want not. Very little goes to waste around here.”
Pickled watermelon rinds wrapped in bacon. Complements scallops wrapped in bacon.
Left over turkey? Give me a jar of Hellmanns and the carcass will be stripped and ready for stock.
Let’s start a list of the things that aren’t “natrual”
1. Wearing clothes 2. Hurtling thru the air@30,000 feet @500 mph. 3. Central cooling, heating. 4. living in houses. 5. Antibiotics...etc.
There’s a place advertising fresh turkeys. Claims you can taste how good a life they had. And only $200 each.
I’ll stick with my 78 cents/lb frozen gobbler from Wally World.
Sorry you have such an unpleasant family. I don't mind mine so much even if there are a couple of odd ducks in the bunch. At least not enough to disown them over turkey, LOL.
In other news. there is just as much leftover “Tofurkey” as ever.
In my house hold it’s invisible turkey, cause I hate turkey. Nasty unpleasant meat.
I wish my mom passed when my twin and i were 7
"You've got your tom, your hen, your capon, and your turkey. Something's missing."
I always look for a 22/23 pounder...
Sorry Snowflakes ...I like leftovers...how can it be wasteful if its all eaten ???
You want to shut the bird you are going to harvest up for a couple of weeks and feed him what my husband calls a "plumping" diet as the pasture raised birds can be very lean.
An avid turkey hunter once told me that only the breast meat was edible, the thighs & wings were simply too tough. Made sense, a wild turkey can both fly and run extremely fast. I saw both in action when a turkey T-boned my minivan on interstate; left a dent.
Anyway, never had turkey growing up. For Thanksgiving & Christmas my grandmother bought a Padgett chicken from a local breeder who tried to take his large birds to China in the 1930’s. Family dinners were eight adults & four kids; the roast bird was large enough to feed us all & there were leftovers. All the fixin’s were homemade; no Stove Top. Such memories.
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