Post by flhuntress on Nov 27, 2003 19:23:15 GMT -5
Meat on Legs: The Story of the Turkey
by Tamim Ansary
I ran into a couple of turkeys one time in New Mexico ...
Wait. Before I go on, let me make sure we're on the same page. When I say "a couple of turkeys," what are you picturing? Two dimwitted, socially challenged buffoons with thick horn-rimmed glasses and loud polyester pants?
No, no, no.
I'm talking about the bird.
But as long as we're on the subject, let's consider the question that must be tormenting leading turkeys everywhere: How did it come to this? How did turkey become a slang word for "dimwitted buffoon"?
The turkey was once considered noble. In the early days of our republic, it was a leading contender for the title of national bird, proud symbol of our nation. But alas! When the votes were counted, the bald eagle had edged it by a beak.
If not for this defeat, the turkey might now be displayed on the presidential seal. And when our astronauts touched down upon the Moon they might have spoken the immortal words: "Houston ... The turkey has landed."
Did You Know?
When Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr. ate their first meal on the Moon, their foil food packets contained...roasted turkey with all the trimmings. Ben Franklin, a leading lobbyist for the turkey, did not take its defeat kindly. "I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country!" he wrote in a bitter letter to his daughter. "The turkey is a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America." He went on to lambaste the eagle as a bird of "bad moral character" and to lavish praise upon the turkey with adjectives such as "beautiful," "cunning," and "courageous." But the bird Ben Franklin praised, the one the Pilgrims (probably) served at that famous first Thanksgiving, was the wild turkey. And that bird is so different from the huge pile of meat on legs we call turkey today, it might as well be a different creature. Let's compare.
Svelte they're not
Wild turkeys are the biggest game birds in North America, measuring up to 4 feet from beak to tail and standing as much as 4 feet tall. They've been known to weigh as much as 24 muscular pounds. But they're svelte compared to the domestic turkey. The heaviest domestic on record weighed--are you ready?--75 pounds.
On the Web
The turkey is indeed an American original. Turkeys were found only in the Americas until the 1600s. Then the Spanish carried a few of them back to Spain and the rest is history. Today cuisines around the world feature turkey recipes.
Domestic turkeys are bred to gain weight quickly. A tom (male) turkey can reach a weight of 30 pounds within 18 weeks after hatching. But it's all done with breeding, not hormones or steroids; no drug has been approved for use in raising turkeys.
Love machines
Wild turkeys--the males--put on quite a show when they court. Their gobbling drives the females to distraction. Their heads are outfitted with all sorts of apparatus whose only function is to make lady turkeys swoon. There's the wattle, the beard, and the caruncle. And let's not forget the snood, a long, red, fleshy flap that hangs over a turkey's beak. (I can't help hearing in my head a turkey cover of "Brass in Pocket" by the Pretenders: "... gonna use my wattle ... gonna use my snood ...")
A wild turkey can change his whole head from red to blue in minutes. For the pièce de résistance, he fans out his tail and puffs up his body feathers to look huge and round--and there's your classic Thanksgiving icon. But only wild male turkeys look like this, and then only when they're in the mood for love.
Did You Know?
Americans eat about 18 pounds of turkey per person per year, the National Turkey Federation reports. But turkey is still running fourth in the meat popularity polls. Chicken leads at 72 pounds per capita; then comes beef (68 pounds) and pork (52 pounds). But turkey wins on Thanksgiving, when 91 percent of American households serve the big bird, adding up to 675 million pounds of turkey consumed on this one day.
Domestic turkeys don't change head color. Their snoods are always red. They don't court much; perhaps they know it would be useless. Why? They are too chunky and barrel-chested to, um, get close. To put it bluntly, they can't mate; they're the wrong shape now. Domestic turkeys are artificially inseminated.
Not only that, but the turkey industry has developed two types of domestic turkey. One is called the female line (which consists of both males and females), whose job is to produce eggs. The other is the male line (again, both males and females here), and its job is to produce meat. Well, okay, "produce" is a euphemism. The job is to be meat.
Wild and wily
But let's get back to the difference between wild turkeys and tame ones. The wild ones are notoriously wary, wily birds. Human beings rarely see them, mostly because they see humans first. They have some of the sharpest eyes in nature and can spot the slightest movement hundreds of feet away. When they do, they take instant maneuvers, or just run--and wild turkeys can run at 25 mph.
Domestic turkeys are quite the opposite. They don't know what to make of danger. They have been bred for passivity. When people first realized that wild turkeys were verging on extinction, tame turkeys were released into the woods to increase the wild stock. But the domestic birds simply stood wherever they had been released, waiting to be fed. If a predator didn't get them, they just starved to death.
On the Web
Aggressive efforts to save the wild turkey, starting around 1900, have sparked a miraculous comeback. Wild turkeys now live in 42 states--more than their original range. They are so numerous that people have permission to shoot them again. There is even a turkey shooting federation headquartered in Texas.
Another reason wild turkeys are rarely seen: Their patchwork color scheme makes for good camouflage in the dappled light of their home woods. But domestic turkeys would be easy to spot in nature: They're entirely white. They've been bred this way so their feathers won't bleed color into the meat when they're plucked: No one wants to eat colorful meat.
And there's one more thing that separates wild turkeys from their domesticated cousins: Wild turkeys can fly. They don't make a habit of it, but when they have to, they can fly quite well. They can clear a 60-foot tree within 100 feet of takeoff and go several miles at 50 mph. As for domestic turkeys, have you heard the Zen injunction "Don't just do something--stand there?" Domestic turkeys are very Zen.
The turkey is always with us
Most people have never seen a wild turkey. When they hear the words, they probably think of a specific brand of Kentucky bourbon. But domestic turkeys are almost too familiar, if you know what I mean. Half the items in the grocery store seem to be made of turkey nowadays: turkey ham, turkey pastrami, even turkey bacon. Pretty soon, I predict, everything will be made of turkey or soy.
Did You Know?
You won't see this fact advertised on many labels, but turkey skins are tanned and used to make items such as cowboy boots, belts, and other accessories.And this is on top of the Thanksgiving ritual. Don't get me wrong, I love the roasted bird at Thanksgiving. And the turkey sandwiches the next day are great too. And the turkey casseroles the following week are ... good. And the turkey soup a week after that, well, okay. And the kids going off to school wearing their little turkey hats and mittens--okay, okay, enough already!
Getting back, though, to the turkeys I saw in New Mexico: huge, gawky-looking meat factories in a pen. Their owner told me he used to have three, but one drowned in a rainstorm. I thought he was joking, but later, in the Dorothy Hinshaw Patent book Wild Turkey, Tame Turkey, I read that "tame turkeys have been known to die in a downpour." And I've heard this story elsewhere. I don't know if it's apocryphal, but the point seems clear: The domestic turkey is apparently one creature that really doesn't know enough to come in out of the rain.
But if your career consists of being meat, I guess you don't really have to be all that handsome or smart to succeed.
by Tamim Ansary
I ran into a couple of turkeys one time in New Mexico ...
Wait. Before I go on, let me make sure we're on the same page. When I say "a couple of turkeys," what are you picturing? Two dimwitted, socially challenged buffoons with thick horn-rimmed glasses and loud polyester pants?
No, no, no.
I'm talking about the bird.
But as long as we're on the subject, let's consider the question that must be tormenting leading turkeys everywhere: How did it come to this? How did turkey become a slang word for "dimwitted buffoon"?
The turkey was once considered noble. In the early days of our republic, it was a leading contender for the title of national bird, proud symbol of our nation. But alas! When the votes were counted, the bald eagle had edged it by a beak.
If not for this defeat, the turkey might now be displayed on the presidential seal. And when our astronauts touched down upon the Moon they might have spoken the immortal words: "Houston ... The turkey has landed."
Did You Know?
When Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr. ate their first meal on the Moon, their foil food packets contained...roasted turkey with all the trimmings. Ben Franklin, a leading lobbyist for the turkey, did not take its defeat kindly. "I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country!" he wrote in a bitter letter to his daughter. "The turkey is a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America." He went on to lambaste the eagle as a bird of "bad moral character" and to lavish praise upon the turkey with adjectives such as "beautiful," "cunning," and "courageous." But the bird Ben Franklin praised, the one the Pilgrims (probably) served at that famous first Thanksgiving, was the wild turkey. And that bird is so different from the huge pile of meat on legs we call turkey today, it might as well be a different creature. Let's compare.
Svelte they're not
Wild turkeys are the biggest game birds in North America, measuring up to 4 feet from beak to tail and standing as much as 4 feet tall. They've been known to weigh as much as 24 muscular pounds. But they're svelte compared to the domestic turkey. The heaviest domestic on record weighed--are you ready?--75 pounds.
On the Web
The turkey is indeed an American original. Turkeys were found only in the Americas until the 1600s. Then the Spanish carried a few of them back to Spain and the rest is history. Today cuisines around the world feature turkey recipes.
Domestic turkeys are bred to gain weight quickly. A tom (male) turkey can reach a weight of 30 pounds within 18 weeks after hatching. But it's all done with breeding, not hormones or steroids; no drug has been approved for use in raising turkeys.
Love machines
Wild turkeys--the males--put on quite a show when they court. Their gobbling drives the females to distraction. Their heads are outfitted with all sorts of apparatus whose only function is to make lady turkeys swoon. There's the wattle, the beard, and the caruncle. And let's not forget the snood, a long, red, fleshy flap that hangs over a turkey's beak. (I can't help hearing in my head a turkey cover of "Brass in Pocket" by the Pretenders: "... gonna use my wattle ... gonna use my snood ...")
A wild turkey can change his whole head from red to blue in minutes. For the pièce de résistance, he fans out his tail and puffs up his body feathers to look huge and round--and there's your classic Thanksgiving icon. But only wild male turkeys look like this, and then only when they're in the mood for love.
Did You Know?
Americans eat about 18 pounds of turkey per person per year, the National Turkey Federation reports. But turkey is still running fourth in the meat popularity polls. Chicken leads at 72 pounds per capita; then comes beef (68 pounds) and pork (52 pounds). But turkey wins on Thanksgiving, when 91 percent of American households serve the big bird, adding up to 675 million pounds of turkey consumed on this one day.
Domestic turkeys don't change head color. Their snoods are always red. They don't court much; perhaps they know it would be useless. Why? They are too chunky and barrel-chested to, um, get close. To put it bluntly, they can't mate; they're the wrong shape now. Domestic turkeys are artificially inseminated.
Not only that, but the turkey industry has developed two types of domestic turkey. One is called the female line (which consists of both males and females), whose job is to produce eggs. The other is the male line (again, both males and females here), and its job is to produce meat. Well, okay, "produce" is a euphemism. The job is to be meat.
Wild and wily
But let's get back to the difference between wild turkeys and tame ones. The wild ones are notoriously wary, wily birds. Human beings rarely see them, mostly because they see humans first. They have some of the sharpest eyes in nature and can spot the slightest movement hundreds of feet away. When they do, they take instant maneuvers, or just run--and wild turkeys can run at 25 mph.
Domestic turkeys are quite the opposite. They don't know what to make of danger. They have been bred for passivity. When people first realized that wild turkeys were verging on extinction, tame turkeys were released into the woods to increase the wild stock. But the domestic birds simply stood wherever they had been released, waiting to be fed. If a predator didn't get them, they just starved to death.
On the Web
Aggressive efforts to save the wild turkey, starting around 1900, have sparked a miraculous comeback. Wild turkeys now live in 42 states--more than their original range. They are so numerous that people have permission to shoot them again. There is even a turkey shooting federation headquartered in Texas.
Another reason wild turkeys are rarely seen: Their patchwork color scheme makes for good camouflage in the dappled light of their home woods. But domestic turkeys would be easy to spot in nature: They're entirely white. They've been bred this way so their feathers won't bleed color into the meat when they're plucked: No one wants to eat colorful meat.
And there's one more thing that separates wild turkeys from their domesticated cousins: Wild turkeys can fly. They don't make a habit of it, but when they have to, they can fly quite well. They can clear a 60-foot tree within 100 feet of takeoff and go several miles at 50 mph. As for domestic turkeys, have you heard the Zen injunction "Don't just do something--stand there?" Domestic turkeys are very Zen.
The turkey is always with us
Most people have never seen a wild turkey. When they hear the words, they probably think of a specific brand of Kentucky bourbon. But domestic turkeys are almost too familiar, if you know what I mean. Half the items in the grocery store seem to be made of turkey nowadays: turkey ham, turkey pastrami, even turkey bacon. Pretty soon, I predict, everything will be made of turkey or soy.
Did You Know?
You won't see this fact advertised on many labels, but turkey skins are tanned and used to make items such as cowboy boots, belts, and other accessories.And this is on top of the Thanksgiving ritual. Don't get me wrong, I love the roasted bird at Thanksgiving. And the turkey sandwiches the next day are great too. And the turkey casseroles the following week are ... good. And the turkey soup a week after that, well, okay. And the kids going off to school wearing their little turkey hats and mittens--okay, okay, enough already!
Getting back, though, to the turkeys I saw in New Mexico: huge, gawky-looking meat factories in a pen. Their owner told me he used to have three, but one drowned in a rainstorm. I thought he was joking, but later, in the Dorothy Hinshaw Patent book Wild Turkey, Tame Turkey, I read that "tame turkeys have been known to die in a downpour." And I've heard this story elsewhere. I don't know if it's apocryphal, but the point seems clear: The domestic turkey is apparently one creature that really doesn't know enough to come in out of the rain.
But if your career consists of being meat, I guess you don't really have to be all that handsome or smart to succeed.