Draggingtree Posted November 25, 2021 Share Posted November 25, 2021 Texas First: Killing and Cooking My Own Thanksgiving Turkey As an impressive quantity of hot, steaming blood poured over my bare hands, I wondered how I, a vegetarian for most of my life, had ended up her By Rose Cahalan “Whatever you do, don’t let go of the legs.” These words of warning, delivered sternly by a seasoned rancher, didn’t seem necessary at first. I was standing in a sunny patch of pasture at Roam Ranch, a nine-hundred-acre paradise along the Pedernales River just east of Fredericksburg, holding a very calm and quiet turkey. A twelve-pound tom with ample black-and-gray plumage, the bird emitted the occasional soft gobble but did not move. I looked into its beady black eyes and said, feeling foolish and more than a little nervous, “Thanks for your life, turkey. And, uh, I’m really sorry for what I’m about to do.” Then I lifted it into the air, tail first, and immediately understood the advice about the legs. The turkey flapped its wings wildly, yelping and thrashing its body against mine in a flurry of feathers and dust. I held on, but barely. “You’ve got a live one!” my instructor laughed. Together we hoisted the animal upside down into a metal cone, mounted on the side of a livestock trailer, where it would meet its end. The bird became suddenly still again, with only its head and neck protruding from the narrow bottom of the cone. https://www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/texas-first-killing-thanksgiving-turkey/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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