Practicing what I preach

I freely admit I’m kind of a food snob.  Not gourmet food so much as organic, local, and humanely raised food.  I blame Michael Pollan and his “Omnivore’s Dilemma”.  That book opened my eyes about factory food and I’ve tried my very best in the two years since reading that book to implement good, conscious food habits.  I grow a lot of my own food, and what I have to buy is certified organic.  I buy my milk from Snowville Creamery and buy only meat that is certified as not being raised in a CAFO (“confined animal feeding operation”; sounds lovely, doesn’t it?).  So, yeah.  A snob.

And, today, I practiced what I’ve been preaching by really connecting to my food.  In a truly intimate way.

A couple of months back, I met a guy at a business meeting who, on the side, raises chickens and turkeys.  As the holiday is approaching, he announced that he’d have turkeys for sale.  Not as pets, but processed and dressed for dinner (which always makes me think they’ll be decked out in little tuxedos).

So, in the pouring rain, I drove down to his farm in Baltimore, where I found his wife cleaning the already-processed turkeys.  I had told Andy on the phone that I didn’t want to see them in the actual processing process, so when I arrived the turkeys I’d requested looked a lot like grocery store turkeys – bald and headless and feetless.  I did lean in close to take a long look at the innards, which were interesting, all coiled and shiny, and Melissa said that one bird’s viscera were even still warm.  I took her word for it.

We chatted while she finished and they bagged and weighed the birds.  Another friend came for a turkey with his young son, so we went down to visit the remaining turkeys in their pen.  They all came out from the shelter to greet us and were talkative and, yes, of course, cute.

After hanging out in the house to dry off and warm up for a bit and chat more and pour honey (they raise bees too) and look at the “how to process a turkey” book, I decided that when they went back outside to finish the processing I would watch and photograph.

I can’t explain why it didn’t feel sad or weird or upsetting.  If you know me, you know I’m a HUGE animal lover and that I have to change the channel whenever an animal cruelty story is teased on the news.  I LOVE animals.

So maybe it IS weird.  Weird that I could watch as Andy chose a turkey from the pen and carried it up to the processing area.  That I could watch as he picked it up by the feet and placed it head-down in the killing cone.  That I could (almost) watch as he “did the deed”.  And that I didn’t cry.  That I didn’t even feel like crying.  And that I didn’t puke (or feel like puking).  I had a momentary sadness when I thought this turkey’s penmates might be sad at the loss of their friend, but then that’s me projecting my feelings onto them.  Anthropomorphising.  So I stopped that.

To say I enjoyed the experience would be creepy, so I’ll just say that I’m glad to have been witness to this process.  But I WILL enjoy my turkey.  I know that it will be wonderful and delicious because it was treated as a turkey should be treated – having as much free space in which to roam as it could ever want, eating bugs and grass and grain, and living a happy turkey life.  I will enjoy my turkey, and I will thank him profusely for his ultimate sacrifice.  Thank you, Mr. Turkey.  And thank you, Andy and Melissa, for allowing me to share this with your family and to make these photographs.