Killing and Prepping a Turkey, with Pictures

It’s indicative of something—the nature of internet nerds’ interest perhaps?—that a great story about someone hand-harvesting a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner only has 7 votes on Digg.

I share the author’s philosophy that if you aren’t willing to kill something you shouldn’t be comfortable eating it. In lieu of actually being able to travel to a farm like this chap and whipping your own machete to laterally pop off the heads of a dozen birds at a stroke—okay, maybe I’m a little bloodthirsty; or at least hungry—then looking to see how it was done in the not-all-that-olden days is the next best thing.

One thing I don’t quite understand is why he bled the bird out instead of just lopping off its head. I thought that was standard procedure for fowl. Then again, I’ve only cleaned chickens, never a turkey. Maybe getting all the blood out is more important for a 35-pound bird?

A note: There are pictures of bleeding turkeys at the following link.

How to harvest a turkey [Friday]