Question About Fresh Turkey

[PamOKW]

I'm not usually the one who prepares the turkey but the one who "helps". Usually a turkey has a bag inside containing the neck, giblets, etc.

This year I bought a turkey (fresh not frozen). It did not have the pouch but instead needed to have the different parts (heart, liver, etc.) cut out from the bird and also had part of the neck still attached.

I was stunned by this. I'm wondering if the past turkeys were frozen and it was like this because it was a fresh turkey? Any turkey experts out there? I sure don't want to ever deal with this again.

 

[piratesmate]

We had a fresh Wampler-Longacre Turkey this year. The giblets were packed in the 'paper' bag as usual.

The only organs I've ever had to clean out of the bird were the kidneys. . . and that's only when the inside isn't clean well at all.

We rent our house on a working farm & they raise ducks, geese & turkeys for T'giving & C'mas. They also dress the birds with the organs removed. They don't put them in bags, though - just stuff them inside.

If I ever got one like that, I would skip stuffing it & just make my stuffing in a separate pan! YUCK!

 

[PamOKW]

Thanks Piratesmate. I agree about not using the stuffing in the bird. In fact, I ended up not using the bird. I bought it at a store that's always asking for customer comments and I just wanted to be sure this was kind of unusual and not something I should have "known". I went there special to buy the turkey.....should have just stuck with the regular grocery store.

 

[piratesmate]

I'm curious, was it a "brand" of turkey - or just butchered and wrapped at the store? My first thought when I read your post was that you have a lazy butcher!

I'm so sorry that you didn't even get to use the bird . . . did you go out & buy another or just have ham?

 

[PamOKW]

Stew Leonard's is a well-known store (well, 3 of them) in this area. They do extremely large volumes of business -- to the point where they are a local tourist attraction. They made arrangements with a turkey farm in Virginia to sell large volumes of these turkeys under their own name...touting how wonderful they were in print and radio ads. They were wrapped in plastic just like a Butterball or the Wampler-Longacre turkey you mentioned. That's why it was such a shock. Let's just say Thanksgiving was a bust this year but no guests were involved.

 

[piratesmate]

Guests or not, I'd hate to have gone through all the prep work & not be able to use the turkey. I'm sure it was a disappointment, and I'm sorry that it happened to you.

On the other hand, I'd be really, really happy if I didn't have to slop with the turkey twice in one day! Actually, I had stopped cooking the bones to make soup or what we call Pot Pie (not those deep dish things - more like a stew with GREAT noodles!) It's just too much work & smelling turkey for days on end kind of gets to me.

This year, though, I broke down & cooked the bones because we're both out of work.

Oh well, as someone on another thread said earlier today - "on to Christmas!" So, what will you have for Christmas dinner? I'm assuming it won't be turkey.

 

[PamOKW]

I'll have turkey if someone else cooks it. Maybe I'll take the easy way out with ham. I hated throwing away "money" as well as the time I'd spent getting the stuffing ready but it was just a bad day all around. Hopefully, Christmas will be more joyous.

 

[BevS97]

Hi Pam,

I had a similiar experience a couple of years ago at Christmas - we had a frozen turkey and I defrosted it for a 48 hours before hand as it said on the bag. when I cooked it, it just smelled really bad - I can't describe it, but we were quite sure it was off, so we decided not to eat it. Fortunately, my mother in law had brought a ham for the evening, so we had ham instead - not quite what we had planned.

I am doing Christmas dinner again this year, and am very nervous about the turkey - I was thinking a fresh one would be safer, but now I'm just not sure!

Bev