Should You Pay Top Dollar for Turkey?
Turkey is pretty bland, so why pay $100 for a mail-order bird when supermarket options cost less than $2 a pound?
Talking Turkey
A great-tasting roast turkey is not just about turkey flavor; the texture and moisture of the meat are important, too, as anyone who has eaten a mouthful of dry, chewy turkey can attest. Wondering how big a role fat played, we sent the turkeys in our lineup to an independent laboratory to test samples from the skin, white meat, and dark meat; we also had the lab measure their salt content. As we awaited results, we talked with turkey experts about the factors that contribute to a turkey's quality, which include its breed, how it's raised and fed, and how it's processed for sale.
In a sense, modern commercial turkeys have been bred to have very little flavor, said Michael Lilburn, a professor of animal sciences at Ohio State University. "In the United States, we're a white-meat market. This created a heavy emphasis on genetic selection for breast-muscle growth."
The most common commercial turkey, the Broad-Breasted White, has been bred to grow bigger in less time and on less feed (to reduce costs) and to produce the maximum possible white meat, Lilburn said. Today's turkeys are up to 70 percent white meat, and they grow fast. Most Americans eat a hen (female) turkey on Thanksgiving. These birds are ready for market in just 14 weeks, when they weigh 16 to 22 pounds, which yields processed birds in the 12- to 18-pound range. (By contrast, older breeds of turkey, called heritage birds, need seven to eight months to grow to full size—roughly twice as long as modern turkeys.)
Rapid growth may be good for farmers, but it's not so great for cooks. Modern turkeys have less fat when fully grown, said Dong Ahn, a professor of animal science at Iowa State University, and fat is what provides meat with juiciness and flavor. "Fats contain more flavor compounds over time," Ahn said. "Commercial birds grow so fast, they don't have time to accumulate much flavor."
In Good Taste
Turkey growers have resorted to other means to return flavor—and fat—to the turkey, including injecting "basting" solutions during processing. These solutions can contain salt, turkey broth, oil, sugar, and sodium phosphate (which raises the meat's pH, binding water to the cells), all of which work to season the meat and keep it moist. Turkeys sold this way are often called "prebasted" and can be identified by the ingredient label. While our tasting panel generally liked Butterball and Jennie-O birds in this familiar style, some found them bland and "wet" rather than actually moist.
Another way turkey gains flavor is through koshering. Kosher birds start as the same breed of commercial large-breasted turkeys, but they are processed according to Jewish dietary law and under rabbinical supervision. The carcasses are covered in kosher salt and then rinsed multiple times in cold water, which works to season the meat, improve its texture, and help it retain moisture. Rubashkin's Aaron's Best and Empire Kosher were the two kosher birds in our lineup. While Aaron's Best ranked highly, tasters found the Empire to be decidedly bland. What made the difference? The lab tests were revealing. The Aaron's Best turkey had slightly more fat and nearly twice as much salt as the Empire turkey.
So what about the unconventional turkeys? The organic, pasture-raised bird from Good Earth Farms in Milladore, Wis. (purchased online through the independent farm cooperative Local Harvest) was the same breed as commercial turkeys, but it had been free to roam and eat foraged grass and insects. It also ate organic versions of the usual soy and cornmeal feed most turkeys consume, along with wheat. While all this sounds great, our tasters didn't notice a big improvement in flavor. Indeed, Ahn noted that unless the bird was eating 100 percent foraged food, most consumers could not taste a difference in the meat. The texture of this bird was slightly stringier and tougher than most tasters preferred, probably because it got more exercise. It finished second to last in our lineup.
Another unconventional turkey, from Diestel Family Turkey Ranch in Sonora, Calif., was raised on a vegetarian diet—meaning the bird ate none of the animal byproducts that can be part of commercial turkey diets—and was "range-grown," another term for pasture-raised. The company claims its birds are allowed to grow longer than average—in this case, about six months—for better flavor; however, tasters found that flavor "gamy" and "fishy," particularly in the dark meat. It finished last in the rankings.
Unlike the other two unconventional birds, the single heritage turkey in our lineup won favor, with tasters remarking on its "robust turkey flavor" that was "sweet" and "complex." Heritage turkeys are directly descended from wild turkeys and nearly disappeared in the mid-20th century as commercial Broad-Breasted Whites were created by the poultry industry. Heritage turkeys have colorful feathers, a more elongated frame, and a narrower breast.
The heritage turkey in our lineup, sold through Dean & Deluca for $100 plus shipping, had the most fat by far of the turkeys we tasted—lab results showed it had nearly three times the fat of the leanest bird. A call to its grower, Mike Walters of Walters Hatchery in Stilwell, Okla., revealed his secret for a sweeter bird. While most turkeys eat a ration of corn and soybean meal throughout their lives, Walters eliminates soy from his turkeys' diet in the final weeks, feeding them only sweet corn. "It gives the birds a layer of fat under the skin," Walters said. He also tastes the feed himself before he gives it to the turkeys. "I figure whatever residual flavor is in my mouth is the residual flavor that you will have after eating my turkey," he said. "If you ever ate a plain soybean, you know it's bitter. Why feed your birds a flavor that is bitter?" Walters said that he believes any breed of turkey would benefit from this feeding system, though he admits to having no science to back up this assertion, and the food scientists we spoke to were a bit skeptical.
Pecking Order
So what should you buy? It's hard to go wrong with the frozen kosher bird from Aaron's Best. It's moist, flavorful, and ready to cook, since no brining is needed. The prebasted birds from Butterball and Jennie-O finished a notch below our top choices, but they are consistent and also don't require brining. Although unremarkable, the frozen prebasted birds are certainly acceptable.
It's harder to give definitive advice about the less conventional choices. We didn't like the two pasture-raised birds we tasted, and heritage turkeys tend to be more variable in flavor than commercial options. Although the heritage bird from Walters Hatchery finished in the top tier, in a previous tasting of several heritage turkeys (November/December 2005), tasters complained that many of the birds were too gamy.
Finally, there's the cost issue. A 14-pound supermarket turkey sells for about $20. Order the same size bird by mail and the price tag could top $100 once you pay for overnight shipping. You might end up with a superior turkey, but it's a gamble. What's more, the smaller producers can undergo some upheaval, as we found with our favored heritage bird. After our tasting, we learned that the Walters family was moving their turkey business to Missouri and renaming it Walters Poultry, and while they plan to use the same breeder stock, growing conditions, and feed, there is no guarantee that this Thanksgiving's birds will be the same as the ones we tasted.
Fresh or Frozen?
When organizing our tasting, we decided to buy fresh turkeys wherever possible, assuming they would be better. But as we tallied the results of the tasting, we learned that most of our higher-ranked birds were, in fact, frozen. Our tasters consistently found the frozen birds to be moister than the fresh. This puzzled us until Professor Ahn explained that a "fresh" bird can actually be tougher and drier than a frozen one.
Turkeys may be labeled as "fresh" if they have been chilled to as low as 26 degrees. But at this temperature, tiny ice crystals can form in the meat. If the temperature fluctuates (during storage or transport, at the supermarket, or on the way to your home), these crystals can melt, combine with neighboring crystals, and then refreeze. According to Ahn, "Eventually, irregularly shaped ice crystals will start to poke the cell membranes in the meat. They make holes and the cell tissues in the muscles will start to lose their internal contents. Then when they are cooked, those birds will be dry."
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