Talking Turkey

Everyone at our Thanksgiving dinner commented on the turkey.  They liked it.  Which surprised them.  It seems most people’s favorite part of the traditional Turkey Day dinner is not the turkey.  Generally, they said, by the time a turkey is cooked, parts of it are dry.  Not so, this time, they said.  This turkey was moist and delicious, they said; I didn’t know that was possible.

      I directed all the compliments to Cory, who had prepared the bird.  “I spatchcocked it,” he explained.  This involves removing the bird’s backbone and flattening it before cooking.  Which means it cooks faster and more evenly, so the dark meat and white meat are done at the same time and the whole affair is juicy.  He did other things to the bird also, to make sure it was flavorful.  He did this last year as well and now has the job in perpetuity.

     Not being a carnivore, I tend to enjoy turkey more on the hoof.  A flock of turkeys likes to hang out along Huron Parkway near Glacier Way.  They make themselves at home in the wild areas beside the parkway and in the median, and take particular delight in strutting about in the roadway as well, stopping traffic in four directions. 

     I once saw one about to hop into a UPS truck through the driver’s open door, but traffic cleared in my direction before I could see whether the bird did so or not.  Had I been that UPS driver, the door would have been closed before the decision was all up to the bird.  Drivers are pretty tolerant of the turkeys, by and large, and rarely sound their horns.  Folks do get out of their vehicles periodically and try to usher the birds out of the road.  The turkeys take exception to this behavior, if they deign to take any notice of it at all.

     My sweetheart and I drove past the flock yesterday.  They had their heads down, feeding beside Glacier Way.  It was a grey day.  Maybe the weather put a damper on their customary exuberance.  In any case, what made seeing them so interesting was that one of the birds was white.  From that distance in a moving car on a grey day, we couldn’t tell if the odd bird out was an albino or leucistic or a domestic turkey that had joined the group.

     Odds favor its being a domestic bird gone rogue, as albino and leucistic wild turkeys are exceedingly rare, and their coloring no doubt contributes to their early demise.  We’ve seen the occasional white domestic goose keeping company with wild Canada geese, but this is our first glimpse of a white turkey with a wild flock.*

     I shared our sighting of the outlier bird with our friend Mary.  She reports that, last summer, she and her son saw a white turkey in their back yard.  Neither of them was able to tell whether the bird was wild or domestic, either.  She was able to confirm, however, that turkeys are very large.  “Some of them are as big as moose,” she announced, and we’ve always found her a reliable informant.**

     When hearing about Mary and Isaac’s experience this morning, my husband agreed wholeheartedly with Mary.  “My grandparents—my father’s mom and dad—kept turkeys,” he said.  “It was awful.  They made me go in with the turkeys and feed them.  They were as big as I was, and they chased me.”***

     “Did the grownups watch over you while you were in with the turkeys?” I asked.  It was fun to picture my beloved as such a small child, although I’m sorry to hear he suffered such an ordeal.

     “I think my grandmother was watching.  I do not have fond memories of that grandmother.” 

     He’d never spoken of her before.  It just goes to show you don’t really know someone until you talk turkey with him.   

3 January 2025

*Did you know that the collective noun for a group of turkeys is rafter?  They may not be raptors, but they’re big and important.  Hence, rafter?

**At this point, I consulted our friend Don.  He informs me that the white turkey we saw was neither albino nor domestic.  It was a “smoky gray,” which can be either white or grey.  The smoky gray is a wild turkey morph.  He looked into the matter when he first saw one. 

***He also says that he happily allows small children to interact with his turkeys.  “Oh, yeah,” he said.  “Turkeys are friendly and curious as hell.  They’ll come running over to be petted.”  When I shared this information with my husband, he said, “I wasn’t hurt.”