A little more than four years ago I joined an online book club through meetup.com. The book that month happened to be Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year in the Life of Food by Barbara Kingsolver (the novelist). I never would have read this book on my own but for me this began an education that truly rocked my world.
The book follows the Kingsolver family as they move from the Southwest back to their summer homestead in Virginia. Their goal is to eat entirely from from their farm or locate their food sources from within 100 miles of their home. They raise livestock, grow fields of vegetables, forage for mushrooms, can, freeze, etc. The author peppered in stories of heirloom seeds, homemade mozzarella (which I've made!), selling chicken eggs, etc. Her stories of the turkey that we all think of gracing our dinner table on Thanksgiving were shocking. She spoke of the big breasted birds that have been modified so much that they can't even have sex to procreate their species. We have bred the most natural instinct out of the animals while stuffing them full of corn feed to ensure we have big breasted $0.49 birds.
The author raised all heritage breeds and encouraged the reader to seek out a heritage breed turkey for their own Thanksgiving table. This fell at the right time of year for me as we were reading the book in October... perfect time to start my search.
My first search via the almighty Google didn't help much. The last 4 years has shown increased demand for local food making a current Google search much more productive!
Several searches and phone calls led to a farm north of Concord. They didn't have a web site but they did have turkey's! Our Thanksgiving bird was on order and it would be ready for pick up the Sunday before Thanksgiving.
The morning of pick up we packed the kids in the car and headed out to the farm. The boys both fell asleep on the not too far ride so Matt stayed in the car with them while I got the turkey. I followed the spray painted signs that led to what amounted to a huge tarp tent heated by a pot belly stove. There wasn't a door, just another tarp that could be moved aside to enter.
I didn't know what I was doing... I was wearing nice jeans, Mary Jane's with a heel and my sassy purse slung over my shoulder. Feeling a little foolish and way overdressed for a tarp tent, I pulled back the door and said in a big (trying to overcome my shyness) voice, "Hi there!!!" Heads of several people turned immediately to the crazy woman who just walked in. Their teeth, if counted together, likely equaled my own. What caught my eye next were two large pools full of turkey's bobbing in water. Yes, they were dead, featherless, gutless, etc. but that many turkey's in a pool was a bit surprising to this city girl!
I told the woman behind the folding table my name and she said, "Ahh, yes!" as she remembered me from her conversation with said City Girl. Her husband bobbed a turkey of the weight I ordered from the pool, double checked the weight on an old fashioned hook scale and then wrapped it in a garbage bag. While I wrote my check (don't you people take debit?) her husband asked if I was a Williamson from the Chichester Williamson's. I smiled and politely said no believing that to get out of their quickly it was better not to tell him that I grew up in a suburb of NYC! I handed off my check, picked up my garbage bag, wished everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and got the hell out of there!
It was a decent walk back to the car and I giggled the whole way. By the time I got into the car I couldn't stifle my laughter any more! Tears rolled down my face while I laughed through the story to Matt. He looked at me in disbelief and was glad I went and not him. What a gentleman! When we got home the bird found a home in the fridge until Thanksgiving morning - and boy was he tasty.
The turkey adventures have continued since then. Three years ago I met the farmer halfway at the library in Candia. We had a turkey exchange in the parking lot. Last year had a more traditional pick up with the bird waiting for us already wrapped in a cold garage. This year is yet another different farm - this one happens to offer a CSA for both veggies and meat. This will be a trial run for perhaps signing up in late winter.
The current year's bird story is often a topic at the Thanksgiving table which I do enjoy. I'll never buy another frozen bird again as the antics and the people are just too memorable to skip. Besides, the turkey is just awesome and cannot be missed.
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