Time to find that special turkey

Thanksgiving isn't just about the food; it is about relationships

Posted by Carl Flatow (Guest Contributor) at 5:05 PM on 24 Sep 2007

Read more about: food | local food | holiday

The Thanksgiving holiday serves to focus our attention on man's relationship with nature. In a celebration of the fall harvest, we express our appreciation for the bounty we have received.

In American tradition, the Pilgrims' survival in the New World was enabled by the Native Americans, with whom they joined in a great feast of thanks. Every year Americans set aside a day to hold their own feast of Thanksgiving which features traditional foods that are native to the Americas, such as, turkey, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, corn, turnips, and pumpkin pie.

Our celebration of Thanksgiving is the perfect opportunity to reinforce our connection, not only with the earth which still provides us with such a bounty but also the members of our community who have made raising these foods their life's work. While opening a can of yams, defrosting a frozen industrial turkey and buying a boxed pumpkin pie may have meaning in continuing some parts of the Thanksgiving tradition, I suggest we celebrate our relationship with the present as well as the past by making an extra effort to eat as many of these traditional foods from local, humanely raised sources as possible. Here in the Northeast that is pretty easy for most of the meal, but what about the turkey?

Finding a fresh, naturally raised turkey will take a little extra effort. These birds are not yet so easy to come by, but what a difference it will make to our celebration.

What could be unnatural about the supermarket turkey we bought last year? For a frank (not for the faint-of-heart) online look at turkey breeding procedures, go here. If you want to learn more than you'll probably ever need to know about natural turkey life and behavior, including intimate details about turkey sex, read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I suggest you read it even if you aren't motivated by that last statement -- it's a great book, and the turkey sex is only one small part (no pun intended).

If you have a resource for non-industrial turkeys, please share it here in the comments section.

And let's not forget that generosity is also a hallmark of the American Thanksgiving tradition. Just as the native Americans unselfishly helped their new immigrant neighbors survive the winter, I will be contributing to local efforts to feed those who are in need by working with my local food rescue organization, Island Harvest.

For story: Time to find that special turkey
17 Comments | Post a Comment

Turkeys

For the last few years, we have had a friend grow our turkeys for us. Not completely organic but free range and cage free. We didn't get our order in this year so will probably get an organic bird from the local meat processor that handles our pig every year and also handles the local buffalo herd.

by wayneluke at 5:37 PM on 24 Sep 2007

Local Co-op

Local Co-op can get organic free range turkeys. One year they provided them in small cardboard coffins.

by Gar Lipow at 5:51 PM on 24 Sep 2007

the Thanksgiving spirit....

Anya: I love a ritual sacrifice.
Buffy: Not really a one of those.
Anya: To commemorate a past event you kill and eat an animal. A ritual sacrifice... with pie

by Gar Lipow at 5:56 PM on 24 Sep 2007

Pumpkin

While the free range turkey (link to Sustainable Table heritage turkey resource) may be necessary for our ethical celebration of the holiday, an often-overlooked but highly rewarding anachronism is roasting your own pumpkin.

I halve pumpkins, scoop out the seeds, lightly oil and salt them and roast them at 400 degrees on the rack until they're soft. Remove them just before the shell splits, dripping pumpkin juice all over the inside of the oven, filling the house with a horrendous, day-after-Halloween-ish smell. Cool and mash up the pumpkin and use just like the canned stuff.

It's not hard and makes a huge difference in the pie. I use locally grown, organic sugar pie pumpkins, of course. It's also ridiculously easy to make your own cranberry sauce, but folks seem wholly addicted to the canned stuff.

Eat what you grow, grow what you eat

by PermieWriter at 10:14 PM on 24 Sep 2007

free-range fraud

This is very well done, Carl. If anything, it is too understated and oblique. Certainly we need always to be educated in how promising-sounding labels on the food we buy are gross betrayals of our trust.

The video at the website meat.org, "Meet Your Meat," has been mentioned now a few times, a couple of times by me, in the recent PETA threads. The first section of it, on Chicken and Turkeys, shows some turkeys being tormented.

The link "Vegetarian 101" takes you to this other PETA site:

http://goveg.com/vegetarian101.asp

There is good information on the treatment of the most common animals raised in the food industry, including turkeys.

This Thanksgiving, I am going to try as forcefully as I dare to get my parents to go with tofurkey.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 10:35 PM on 24 Sep 2007

Eating meat

Although I admit that the Buffy quote made me chuckle a bit, I actually think that associating the consumption of turkey on Thanksgiving with ritual sacrifice distracts from the important topic of being seriously mindful of the impact of our actions on other living beings.

The point of the blog was to encourage folks who now eat industrial food, including meat, to switch to meat from animals raised locally, the old-fashioned way -- humanely, on a diet that is historically natural for that animal. I would think that others who reject the eating of meat might consider that at least a step in the right direction.

On the other hand, I would be interested to know if there are many folks moving from meatless diets toward diets with some meat from animals raised the old-fashioned way, as I am.

Visit http://sus10nc.com More blogs at http://sciencefriday.com These comments represent the opinions of Carl Flatow.

by Carl Flatow at 10:56 PM on 24 Sep 2007
[ Parent ]

mmm ...

Free range and deep-fried! That's livin'.

grist.org

by David Roberts at 11:02 PM on 24 Sep 2007

You can have a great day without the turkey

For most of my thanksgivings in the past 14 years I've had delicious thanksgivings without any turkey at all. One of these holidays I had a tofurkey, which is tasty but I still prefer having a variety of vegetable and wholegrain-based side dishes. My tofu-based vegan pumpkin pie is a hit with everybody, vegan and omnivore alike. For suggested vegetarian and vegan thanksgiving recipes, visit http://vegkitchen.com/recipes/vegetarian-thanksgiving.htm ...

by amc89 at 7:29 AM on 25 Sep 2007

Speaking of special holidays,

the last issue of National Geographic mentioned the feast of Id al-Adha, where Muslim faithful share meat with the poor. Bangladesh imports a million or more cows annually for ritualized slaughter and feasting. Different cultures, different traditions.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 8:27 AM on 25 Sep 2007

High time for a new tradition

Re biodiversivist's comment: "Different cultures, different traditions," the same could be said about genital mutilation, slavery, etc. Culture/tradition doesn't justify harming/killing an innocent individual, whatever species they may happen to be. Nothing makes that right.

Rather than Barbara Kingsolver's book, for a more empathic consideration of turkeys (i.e., written by someone not bent on killing and eating them), see:
http://www.upc-online.org/more_than_a_meal.html

For a quicker read, see:
http://www.upc-online.org/winter06/whoarethey.html

And regarding the mindless custom of eating turkey at Thanksgiving, see:
http://www.upc-online.org/turkeys/60105bowlinggreen.htm

These are all written by Dr. Karen Davis, who has lived with turkeys as companion animals and knows them as the interesting, inquisitive, sentient individuals they are.

It's high time for new tradition that celebrates life rather than causes misery, pain and death.

Respect Life - including your own: Go Vegan.
http://www.TryVeg.com

Mary

by Mary at 10:40 AM on 25 Sep 2007

Mary,

To be honest, I find your equating the use of domesticated animals with genital mutilation and the enslavement of fellow human beings disgusting, your comment on turkeys being inquisitive, sentient, individuals amusing, and your exhortations and links to vegan sites repetitive.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 2:32 PM on 25 Sep 2007

Biodiversivist,

To be honest, I find your equating the use of domesticated animals with genital mutilation and the enslavement of fellow human beings disgusting

Implies that the gorge rises at the mere concept of comparing deliberately inflicted human and animal suffering. I find this, frankly, odd. I'd always imagined your nom-de-plume implied a more inclusive ethic. Care to elaborate?

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

by spaceshaper at 4:36 PM on 25 Sep 2007

Sure, here are a few thoughts

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/11/11/19717/582

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/9/13/125151/338

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/1/13/202149/375

It makes my skin crawl when someone puts animal suffering on the same plane as human suffering (genital mutilation and slavery), can't help it. It's a visceral reaction. Nothing on this planet can suffer like a human being can suffer. Our level of sentience is a double-edged sword. We can see and fear the future.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 5:13 PM on 25 Sep 2007

you say tomahto, I say tomayto

Well, Spaceshaper, I find it kind of odd too.

Still, BioD has at least this much of a point, that human suffering includes the dimension of thought about the long future. And he might have added, human suffering is aggravated by consideration of the suffering of others. That is probably true to a great extent, though, with social animals of the highest sensitivity, such as many primates, cetaceans, elephants and wolves. And other animals too will grieve for the loss of a mate, a parent, a child.

On the other hand, one wishes he might have balanced against that the special character of animal suffering: their vulnerability and utter helplessness in the hands of human beings.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 6:17 PM on 25 Sep 2007

Interesting posts, Biodiversivist,

which I had not had the chance to read before. This has clearly been a significant issue for you for some time and I accept the sincerity of your feelings. I would ask you to accept however that there are others who do not find the comparison of severe human and animal suffering so viscerally odious and that the absolute distinction you draw is neither self-evident nor universally accepted.

Disgust is a strong and undeniable emotion. Disgust at the appalling circumstances of much of what passes for animal husbandry in this culture is of course what drives many of us to a non-carnivorous diet.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

by spaceshaper at 8:31 PM on 25 Sep 2007

Granted, there is much room for improvement

in our current animal husbandry practices and regulations.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 9:48 PM on 25 Sep 2007

And the first improvement

might very well be to "install glass walls" everywhere in the meat industry, as I have said before. I.e., we should all be able to find out easily, quickly and thoroughly how the animals being raised for food and other products are really treated. As Spaceshaper writes, "Disgust is a strong and undeniable emotion"; for the sake of the animals, we should all be given ample opportunity to get good and disgusted.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 10:28 PM on 25 Sep 2007

ADVERTISING POLICY

You are not logged in. Thus, you cannot post a comment. If you have an account, log in. If you don't have an account, well, by all means go make one! Meet you back here in five.