I had been preparing myself for the day near to Thanksgiving when I knew I would be dispatching one of my tom turkeys. Naturally, in preparation I avoided getting close to the chosen turkey. While I did name him (Tomkins) it was a very generic name based only on his being a tom and my association of thanksgiving with pumpkins. I do not think it made the act any easier. The day arrived and I had agreed to help friend and fellow urban farmer, Stefani, with her three turkeys. My mother joined us as did Stefani’s husband and sister (well to document the event). Key equipment and supplies included: a 19 gallon bucket filled about a third of the way with boiled water; a pair 32 inch length compound anvil lopping shears for cutting woody dead growth up to 1 and 3/4″; a large clean tarp; an empty 5 gallon bucket; a sharp culinary knife; a sharp boning knife; and finally more then one pair of hands. This made a fairly quick preparation of three large birds.

Even though prepared, it is an ordeal killing an animal for food (at least for the group of us that are fairly new to it). There were high points of drama such as Stefani’s poor husband, Eric, chasing down one of the toms. The tom smacking into the beehive. The bees beginning to swarm around and sting Eric who had a large wrestling turkey in hand. Continuing to hold the bird down for us. Then, finally excusing himself with a great deal of dignity and going to find the Benadryl.

With four adults ready to help we were able to have an organized chain of events. One person held legs, another person pinned bird down around wings, and another lopped with the shears. After each bird was lopped, we hung it over a five gallon bucket to bleed while we lopped another bird. Then we removed the hanging bird, swished it in the very hot water and began plucking. Until we had all three birds on the tarp in various stages of plucking and cleaning. Though gory, it was a strongly communal experience. At one point, I looked up from my cleaning station to take in the sight of four women (Eric hand departed after the dramatic finale of the last bird) plucking and cleaning and sharing helpful and fascinating stories of home child birth and child rearing. Intimate stories. It never fails to amaze me that women that have just met (I had not met Stefani’s sister, but now I see quick wit is a family trait, and neither know my mother), are able to share important stories of their self. Helpful stories that can guide a person through complex and difficult experiences. Somehow when taking this all in while plucking and preparing a bird for dinner, I felt that these stories and this communal sharing was as much a part of food culture beyond the food itself. I had passed through a threshold of culture that connected me to my food in a way that was deeply meaningful.

My experience in cooking my turkey continued with community. We deep fried our turkey southern style and made gravy with the gizzard. Good friends that were also frying their bird invited us to share oil and to use their fryer. So off we went to Natasha, John and Piza’s house to cook our bird. It was a bit storybook. My mother woke early in the day to bake fresh scones for the group. We packed them and took them over to have tea and scones. We took turns holding the baby Piza, my mother and Natasha talked about motherhood (see it happens each time!) and we cooked the bird as a group.

A quick wrap on preparation: I placed the tom in a cooler with a couple of blocks of ice for a day. The next day I rubbed the bird with a mix of ~1/8 cup kosher salt, ground black pepper, and cayenne pepper. This salted bird got placed in a large plastic bag and went back in the cold cooler for the night. The next morning, before cooking, I injected a marinade. Immediately after injecting, Tompkins was lowered into the fryer.

After cooking The Mader-Johnson household needed to get ready for a long drive to family for their dinner and we needed to return home to continue our own preparations. Since my aim was to cook most of the dinner straight from the garden, this meant harvesting. During the laborious trench digging and excavation of potatoes, my husband questioned the labor to benefit ratio. I pointed out that the work of the experience, the difficulty in raising and killing our own turkey, the physical work of harvesting potatoes, and the sharing of the experience with others is the “thanks” part of the giving. While I do not celebrate Plymouth or the long sordid history of Native American struggle when pilgrims claimed an inhabited land as their own, I do celebrate the giving of a bountiful harvest, community, friends and family. For that, I see the joy in labor.

The gizzard of a bird is a specialized stomach that grinds food.Not sure if you’ve ever noticed but birds don’t have teeth. They swallow their food pretty much whole, it is stored in the crop only chopped from the pecking and swallowing motion, from where it then passes to a very small “stomachy looking” glandular stomach and finally to the gizzard. Birds swallow stones that help the large strong muscle mill the food. This is pretty impressive when you consider some the hard food birds eat like cracked corn, seeds and such.

And though this may only be of interest to some, I’m going to give you the wikipedia etymology of the word gizzard (because its cool and leads to my next point). The word “gizzard” comes from the Middle English giserdd, which derives from a similar word in Old French, and earlier from the Vulgar Latin “*gicerium”, which follows from the Latin word “gigeria”, meaning cooked entrails of poultry.

Which leads me to my next point, cooking the gizzard. I recall eating gizzards as a tiny tot and loving them. As an adult, I rarely cooked things with gizzards. As I have been learning to prepare my own birds, I have not known how to extract the usable parts of the gizzard. My mother showed me with ease and expertise just how to do this.

First, find the hole that had led to the glandular stomach (we had already sliced it open which is why it is parted along the bottom).

Then, slice from then hole downward along the natural groove.

Once this is done, you can invert the gizzard so that the thick sac holding the contents is sticking out.

You then peel the sac out whole.

What you have left behind is the meat of the gizzard. There are a number of ways you can cook the gizzard at this point. We chose to finely chop it and use it as part of a gravy.