It's beginning to look a lot like Thanksgiving

So major Thanksgiving milestone crossed off the list today... I bought the turkey! A 12 pound Butterball. For the past couple of years, I've been buying fresh heritage birds from Whole Foods, but after reading an article in this month's Cooks Illustrated, I learned that I was doing it all wrong.

#1 - You're not supposed to buy a fresh turkey from the store. Federal regulations mean that the bird can be as close to freezing - even partially frozen - and still labeled "fresh." Ice crystals form in the meat, breaking it apart and destroying the flavor. In this case, frozen is actually fresher. (thanks also to Alton Brown for this little factoid, but Cook's Illustrated had it too)

#2 - Integral to turkey flavor are two components: fat and salt. Although the Cooks Illustrated article preferred a certain brand of kosher turkey, I couldn't find it in any of my grocery stores (I hit 3 different ones). So I bought one from their merely "recommended" category, rather than the "highly recommended."

#3 - I am philosophically opposed to the factory farmed and bred livestock industry (indeed, the whole tenor of the agricultural sector in this country has us eating lower quality food, albeit for cheap), which made it difficult to buy such an obvious industrial bird. I got over it for just one day.

#4 - The reason that the bird is so reliably flavorful is because it is injected with salt and chemicals to bind the salt to the meat. Again, I'm not really a fan of having my food industrially flavored. I got over it for just one day.

It's tough being an American, adhering to American mores, when I've lived and traveled in parts of Europe that are deeply wedded to traditional agricultural practices. Then I remember that it is Europe that brought us Creuzfeld Jakob Syndrome (better known as Mad Cow disease), is currently recovering from foot and mouth disease, and is now dealing with bird flu. So the paragons are not infallible.

But what I wouldn't give for some true French Brie... unpasturized of course. And true Italian prosciutto, or Spanish Jamon.