Turkey, Anyone?

By Tom Conger and Connie Kent

The wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) is a magnificent fowl—so much so that ol’ Ben Franklin favored it over the eagle as the US National Bird. But he didn’t prevail. Nevertheless, there are few Americans who do not recognize the turkey—if nothing else as the national entree come late November . . . And a tip of the hat to Swanson for introducing it as the main course of the original TV Dinner in 1954…!

Thus, since shortly after the Pilgrims suffered through their early years in the Plymouth colony, the turkey has been a reliable food staple, especially at holiday time, and seems to thrive in just about any type of climate across this favored land.

In southern Oregon it seems to flourish particularly well—to the point of becoming a nuisance to residents of RVM, who must acknowledge, evade, and/or sidestep rafts of our local birds, plus watch where they step once the feathered crowd has moved on. So, back in August a program was announced wherein many birds would be trapped and relocated somewhere far enough away that they would be unlikely to return to the Barneburg acreage.

This met with huzzahs in certain quarters and laments from others. But there really were/are a lotta turkeys amongst us this year. So the ol’ bait & box method commenced. Didn’t work. A new technique was adopted: in essence, the plan was to spread corn in selected areas, the birds would converge to eat the chow, and a net would be cast over them—all same the iconic Hawaiian throw-net fishermen of yore.

Didn’t hear much for a while, other than scuttlebutt that trapping had not met with crashing success. We sure didn’t notice any reduction in wandering gobblers. Then this report appeared on the RVMlist on 10/18: “Bugs Northwest, the trapping company, initially tried trap boxes which were unsuccessful. They now are using a net gun and have caught twelve so far. The golf course is allowing them to use the net gun at specific times as the turkeys like to congregate there and netting them is easier.”

One resident snidely suggested the herd might be thinned by Chef Eric serving wild turkey for holiday fare. So I checked out wild turkey recipes on the ‘net. Gameandfishmag.com has “Ten most popular wild turkey recipes.” Several suggest marinating the bird ahead of time. One suggests brining the turkey for an extra 12 hours for best results, the brine consisting of water, salt and brown sugar. But it didn’t specify ‘extra’ on top of what.

Basspro.com’s Steve Brodio enthuses, ““How about real turkey, the wild kind? It actually tastes like bird, not cardboard, and has juice that doesn’t come from chemical butter. Eat one, and you’ll never go back.”

However, in my experience w/the wild turkeys of Upcountry Maui and Lanai, I found that a culinary delicacy wild turkey is not—those suckers are tough as tires, and even the cleverest cooks haven’t really hit on a suitable way to tenderize the meat enough to render it palatable. Perhaps marinating for a fortnight in the eponymous 101-proof distillate might help, but ‘twould seem the simplest way to ingest Wild Turkey might be simply on the rocks . .