#Wild turkey flocks license#
There is also less meat per bird - but considering that, according to Dana Gunders at the Natural Resources Defense Council, 204 million pounds of turkey meat is wasted across the country during Thanksgiving, that smaller size may be a good thing.įor those committed to eating turkey on Thanksgiving but are squeamish about hunting, don’t have a license or the time to hunt, or don’t know a hunter who can give them some of their meat, Shaw says heritage birds are the next best thing.
“But you may want to do a wild turkey for the main meat entrée at Thanksgiving if you want to know what a real turkey tastes like.” “It won’t be your stereotypical idea of a Thanksgiving turkey,” as Cordaro says. Cain, the Sacramento River hunter, likes to brine his turkey for a day or two before smoking it with grape or cherry wood. Shaw also suggests barbecuing thighs, making carnitas with the wings and drumsticks, braising meat to be pulled off the bone, and using leftover meat for turkey soup or turkey enchiladas. He prefers to poach breasts in homemade turkey broth, which can be covered with gravy for Thanksgiving. “The sinews in the legs will not break down and will be even harder than in a store-bought bird,” says Hank Shaw, a wild animal cooking expert and author of cookbooks on the subject. And, u nless you have a jake (a young male bird), it can be challenging to cook a wild turkey whole. If you must have stuffing, most recipes suggest stuffing the breasts as opposed to the whole bird: The added mass of stuffing requires more oven time, and wild turkey overcooks easily. Wild turkey meat is lean and dries out quickly, unlike a plump Butterball. “A wild turkey is narrow through the chest and the breast meat is probably the size of an industrial-farmed chicken breast.” “If you pluck a wild bird and put it next to a store bird, they look nothing alike,” says Cordaro, who was a vegetarian for a decade before becoming a hunter. Farmed turkeys live about a half year, weigh up to 35 pounds, and are really too big to do much of anything. Consider this: Wild turkeys can live up to 12 years, can weigh 18 pounds, run at speeds as fast as Usain Bolt, and can fly.
When it comes to cooking wild turkeys, they might as well be an entirely different species than their domestic counterparts. During the fall, the task is far more difficult - hunters have to spot and stalk flocks or solitary birds. And if just one eye sees you, the whole flock goes.”ĭuring spring, toms looking to breed are searching for females and, driven by instincts, will readily strut up to a hunter with a decoy hen and a convincing call. “With turkeys, there are 30 eyes to worry about, which see in color. “When deer hunting, you have two eyes to worry about that don’t see color,” says Jen “The Archer” Cordaro, a bow hunter from San Diego. Often called the last real hunt in America, turkey hunting is notoriously difficult: The birds have great eyesight and travel in flocks.
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