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How Much Will You Pay For Your Thanksgiving Turkey?

112210turkey.jpg If you want an organic or free-range bird for your Thanksgiving feast, we hope you've been saving up! As turkeys start flying off the shelves for Thursday's festivities, the Daily News notes that organic, wild or otherwise fancy birds are going for as much as $14 a pound. But what's $150 for a beloved family who will spend the whole meal criticizing your cooking and then pass out watching the Jets game while you do the dishes?

Architect Stephen Alesch spent over $200 on two Good Shepherd Poultry Ranch Heritage free-range turkeys, which Dean & Deluca says have been rated the best-tasting turkeys on the market. Though they're not fit for locavores (the birds are raised in Kansas), Alesch says, "They hang out in open fields. It's all about what it's been like for them for their one or two years of life." Or really, it's all about them tasting better after spending two years hanging out in those fields, because at the end of the day you are eating the damn thing.

That seems to be why Alesch drew the line at the creme-de-la-creme of gobblers, the D'artagnan free-range wild turkey, which is "raised from the original wild breed," which the News calls "pale, thin, and overpriced." These suckers are going for $14 a pound, and are already sold out online. You could just catch one yourself on Staten Island, but for everyone else who doesn't have such expendable income or a hunting license, regular 'ol brandless turkey is going for $1.19 a pound at Key Foods.

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Comments [rss]

  • JacqueMehoff

    the mehoffs are extra poor this year. I'm afraid bloombag may have one, I might not make it to his end of term.

    I making duck confit and roast potatoes.

  • Dan

    $0, because turkey sucks.

  • hungryinbrooklyn

    it's actually really important to try to get your turkeys from good farms. free-range in actuality only means that they have the OPTION to go outside, but in reality probably will not. most commercial turkeys are slaughtered at too early of an age in order to maximize production. if the turkey is too young, it will remain inside where it believes it is the safest and warmest. only mature turkeys will roam around outside eating bugs and foraging as they should. the key word here is pastured.

    check out our Hungry in Brooklyn visit to a heritage breed turkey farm in NJ:

    http://nxtnw.tv/brexIJ

  • archiphile

    if Stephen Alesch is an Architect, i'm a Vermicious Knid.

  • weenie

    I swear I've seen knock-off kosher AND organic turkeys on Canal St.

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