Poppycock
After a long day at the market when I get home, unload, do the evening farm chores, and take out the trash, I finally get to sit down, put up my feet and cruise through the news, emails, and social media while digesting the day’s events. There’s a growing disconnect between what I read versus what’s really happening, glaring examples that cannot be ignored.
Last week the sky was falling around air travel and my worries for flying friends and customers have been unfounded as they returned from Ashville, Barbados, Portugal, and Seattle with barely a blip on the radar, smooth travels all the way were their first-hand reports.
That’s not to say all is rosy as I console and inquire about the very real effects of the government shutdown, layoffs, and uncertainty, but I felt like my little corner of the world hadn’t been marred too badly by fear, uncertainty, and doubt by the media until the issue that always rears its ugly head this time of year began popping up everywhere, the corny headlines exclaiming that “turkey prices were going to gobble up Thanksgiving budgets.”
Although I no longer raise fresh turkeys on a market scale, I do understand the immense investment of money, time, resources, and logistics it takes to put a quality bird for public sale. A handful of toms to terrorize the FedEx driver and serve as my alarm clock during open window season of late summer is enough for me, but a few years ago I missed out on the poults at the local elevator and ended up purchasing my bird from one of my fellow vendors. Seeing news organizations squawk how holiday shoppers will get sticker shock from turkey prices this year I logged on to check out what the vendor’s prices were for 2025. The same—no change.
Out of curiosity, I called our other two turkey vendors and got their prices, all well within normal ranges for locally grown and processed fresh turkeys—both Broad Breasted and Heritage. Everyone was in line between grocery store mass-produced commodity birds and luxury online options shipped fresh straight to your door. Consumers are not getting gouged. The outrage was unfounded.
If you carve into what is offered in ways of turkey choices, you’ll find sourcing your bird at the farmers market offers the same, if not more, choices than commercial groceries and online retailers. Springfield Farm lets you choose between the faster-growing, large breasted whites and the slower-growing heritage breeds that have more dark meat. Both are raised on pasture, but with differing phenotypes. The difference in price is reflected in the amount of time and feed required to grow a bird to its harvest weight. Liberty Delight Farm has two styles of boneless breast (regular and smoked) for those not wanting to carve around the bones. Their prices were comparable to local purveyors in the community. The Farmstead Butcher will sell you split or brined birds. I hate rustling up a bucket big enough for brining and then worrying about keeping the whole thing cold during the process. They’ve got the equipment, and they’ve got you covered.
Thanksgiving is in not in jeopardy due to cost or availability. I’m looking at the lists of canned and frozen items offered in curated packages for Thanksgiving dinners—green beans, rolls, pumpkin pie, gravy mix, stuffing mix, white potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, onions, celery, cranberries, and mini-marshmallows, all offered for less than what it costs to feed a single turkey to size for the ten people their ready-to-order packages offer. The marketing materials promoted the one-stop option as a way to stretch food budgets and reduce holiday stress. Funny…the farmers weren’t stretching the food budgets for plumping up the birds for your holiday platters so why cause them stress by insinuating they are causing the costs of your Thanksgiving meal the break the bank this year. No wonder modern journalism gets branded as fake news, even the legitimate outlets, by instigating outrage where none should be.
The president has been boasting the cost of Thanksgiving meals will be down 25% this year which leaves me to ask which is it—are we paying more or less? Personally, I’ll trust the steadfastness of the farmers market every damn time.