A Short History of the Turkey

By Tom King

Monday, July 19, 2004

The turkey on the table that first Thanksgiving wasn't a wild American turkey--it was an English bird. Turkeys are a New World discovery, now known to have been domesticated in Mexico around 200 BC. Returning conquistadors brought turkeys to Spain in 1510, and the birds were delivered to livestock farmers in England a decade later. In 1620, Pilgrims brought turkeys back to the New World.

The Pilgrims bred their domesticated turkeys with the wild turkeys of American forests. Turkeys were bred for commerce, and farmers worked to develop breeds that were hardier, or meatier, or tasted better--desirable traits fetching premium prices. From their selections came breeds now referred to as "heirloom," "heritage" or "legacy": first the American Bronze, then the Narragansett, the Jersey Buff and the Bourbon Red.

In the 1870s, in Bourbon County, Kentucky, breeders crossing the Jersey Buff produced an elegant, chesty bird with rich-tasting meat, which they named the Bourbon Red. Until 1910, the Bourbon Red was top bird in the marketplace.

The American Bronze was America's largest turkey and, some say, the handsomest--breeders immediately went to work on this toothsome bird. They feverishly crossed and selected, achieving greater and greater yields. In the late 1920s, a cross made between the Bronze and an English strain resulted in the Broadbreasted Bronze, a bird that grew to nearly 40 pounds and stood four feet tall in full strut.

Then the trouble began and it started with pinfeathers.

In the 1950s, poultry processors deemed black pinfeathers "unsightly" and the hunt was on for a Broadbreasted Bronze with less visible pinfeathers. Enter the Large (or Broadbreasted) White, by now an inbred and somewhat imbecilic creature.

In the post-war 50s and into the 60s, the mass-production of food was seen as a badge of modernity. The Large White fit the program: it grew quickly and produced record weights of breast meat; it was sanitized, removed from the shamble of the barnyard, it was an example of human dominion and American ingenuity.

Enter factory farming: a system, deemed ingenious in its day, of reckless compromises and dire consequences.

The industrial Large White of today is often referred to as a "Frankenbird." Whereas the massive breast and long legs of the Broadbreasted Bronze somehow conveyed a Sun King's majesty, the top-heavy, stub-legged Large White inspires pity. It can't run--it can barely walk; it can't fly; and it can't mate properly. All industrial Large Whites are artificially inseminated.

The joke about turkeys drowning in the rain? No-one knows for sure, but farmers of heirloom turkeys are quick to defend their birds' intelligence and point out their turkeys' inquisitive natures. In their lifetimes, most industrial turkeys will never feel rain.

Today over 95% of the 267 million turkeys consumed by Americans each year are Large Whites. Between 1975 and 2000, per capita consumption of Large White turkey in the United States rose from eight pounds to over eighteen. Today's consumers have a positive perception of turkey meat as a low-fat source of protein.

Industrial production of the Large White is now an eight-billion-dollar-a-year business.

One wayward virus could bring it all down.

Kansas poultry farmers like Frank Reese of Lindsborg and Jim Risch of Hillsboro are working to keep heirloom turkeys alive.

In 2002, Reese's Good Shepherd Ranch held the largest flock of American Bronze turkeys in the country, in addition to important breeding stocks of heirloom ducks and chickens.

Heirloom turkeys bring much-needed diversity to the turkey gene pool--the more genes, the healthier.

Due to their rarity, heirloom birds are usually raised right, and nearly always on small farms. They roam and talk, they peck and browse--they know nothing of the cages and toxins of industry. They roost in barns at night, protected against foxes and great horned owls; toms stage great battles for their hens in the mating seasons; they fly.

"They can fly alright," says Jim Risch, owner of New Song Farm, "but they look like seaplanes taking off."

Risch was once a Chicago mailman who, at age 38, had a heart attack. His doctor advised him to eliminate stress from his life. An optimist, Risch decided on poultry farming. He packed up his family and moved to Hillsboro.

Pheasants are ravenous cannibals Risch was soon appalled to learn.

Owls took his Westphalian turkeys, and the Merriam's--a turkey native to the Rockies--topped out at only ten pounds.

Risch now tends flocks of gregarious Bronzes and Reds.

Heirloom turkeys are endangered--there are less than 1000 birds each of the American Bronze and the Bourbon Red remaining in our country. Whereas consumer demand has driven some food species to the brink of extinction--Chilean sea bass, for example--in this case, only the consumer can ensure the survival of heirloom turkeys.

But the difference we care most about when we sit down to feast is the difference of taste.

Marian Burros, food writer for the New York Times, told of a taste test conducted in 2001 comparing Broadbreasted Whites to four heirloom birds (American Bronze, Bourbon Red, Narragansett and Jersey Buff):

"All of them had richer, fuller flavor--especially in the dark meat--and were much juicier than the industrial birds, including the free-range version. The heritage birds also have texture, not as in tough but as in firm. The meat does not fall apart in your mouth, a characteristic of both industrial birds I roasted. The industrial turkeys were also very dry and had what might be called a ghost of turkey taste."

Most industrial Large Whites are harvested at around four months of age. A turkey's natural fat layer--warmth for the oncoming winter--begins to form around five months of age. Heirloom turkeys reach harvest size at about seven months of age.

But heirloom birds, being active birds, are leaner and more muscular, and the cook has to keep both the fat and the lean in mind when preparing a long-legged heirloom turkey.

As for the truth about taste, ask a 60 year-old who was raised on a farm.

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Posted by sippers (anonymous) on July 20, 2004 at 5:11 p.m. (Suggest removal)

great article, and where can get a Hillsboro bird for roasting?

Posted by Soap (anonymous) on July 20, 2004 at 8:35 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Great blog, Tom.. Just picked up some turkey legs over the weekend :) Long-legged heirloom sounds better though :/ Keep writing!! I always look forward to your articles

Posted by counterlife (anonymous) on July 21, 2004 at 9:30 p.m. (Suggest removal)

I recall some truly tasty turkeys from childhood holiday fests. They were from a small group of birds raised each year by a shirttail relative who owned a cattle ranch near my my home town in far southwestern Kansas. I doubt if they were of heirloom variety, but the taste (like that of the beef we purchased from him, raised on the grass, with no prophlylactic chemicals), was unlike anything one can buy in any traditional market these days. I rarely eat beef, chicken, pork or turkey any longer, largely because I have lost my taste for these modern/corporate and truly appalling redenditions of what can be fabulous. I won't even even begin with the moral issues raised by the abuses of so called "corporate" farming. Back to turkey: what is up with the strange, and, I understand, often house destroying, business of trying to deep fat fry something that big? How could that be anything but dangerous? I also have a hard time imagining that it could taste very good, certainly not good enough to justify calling the fire dept. Thanks for the information.

Posted by bronsonchurch (anonymous) on July 22, 2004 at 1:21 a.m. (Suggest removal)

The Bronson household has not had a truly noble turkey within its gastronomical realm in so long that we are suffering from neglect. Please respond with new recipes.
thank you,
S.C.

Posted by tomking (Tom King) on July 22, 2004 at 8:42 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Bubbas and Bud Lite: BurninTM Down The House.

http://www.ul.com/consumers/turkeys.html... (Underwriters Laboratory)
"Allstate Insurance said 15 homes burned to the ground around the country last Thanksgiving as a result of the improper use of turkey fryers. The product-testing company Underwriters Laboratory Inc. refuses to certify as safe any turkey fryer model currently on the market. In 1999, the last year figures were available, the National Fire Protection Association reported that 500 fires involving a deep-fat fryer took place around the nation, resulting in over $6.8 million dollars in damage. But defenders say the fryers are as safe as any appliance, if used properly.?

Chris McEvoy of the National Review Online is a fried turkey advocate: http://www.nationalreview.com/flashback/...

A Short History of the Turkey

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