Turkey Day

Well, to be more accurate, Turkey Slaughter Day. Instead of gathering the family together in the scenery of late fall, my friends and I rented a cabin on a tropical beach. The weather was hot and sunny on the scorching sand, but comfortable and shady under the coconut trees. We maintained a continual fire of coconut wood for the duration of our stay, building it up to large proportions after sunset. We surfed, drank batidos and beer, ate seafood, swam, hiked, and played american football.

The premise of Thanksgiving is of course family, friends, and food. Our perception of how to rightfully celebrate the holiday morphed along with our reconaissance of information. Before our arrival (and in the weeks leading up to it) we pictured fish and fried plantains in an open fire. To accomodate this fantasy, we stocked up on tinfoil at the grocery store in a larger coastal town. While this idea was valid and served us well for the first night of our retreat, the tinfoil ran out quickly and the owner of the cabin lent us a grill to place over the fire. This opened up a world of possibilities.

Idea number two came when we saw the fisherman bringing in the catch on our second evening. A few others and I ran over to their truck, which was loaded up and ready to head out. We figured on buying some smaller fish to cook that night. None of us were ready for the sight of that truck. Instead of the typical sea bass, flounder, and bagre, the fisherman had eels the width of telephone poles, weird fish with fins coming out of places I never would have imagined, and manta rays with 6-foot diameters. When asked how a manta ray may be cooked, a local woman told me breaded and fried. ´Muy rico´, she said. This sounded quite interesting as a thanksgiving day meal, although none of us had experience slaughtering anything close to a manta ray.

Idea number three came when we saw the owner of our rented cabin´s poultry raising operation. She had one main house with full-grown animals that roamed her beach front property, as well a separate building for the babies. In addition to the normal chickens, she also raised turkeys. Not only this, but she had a beautiful alpha male turkey ripe for the chopping block. This of course was our most appropriate option, but she would not sell it for less than $60. With our collective turkey appraisal experience, we deemed this pricing not extraordinary. After all, what are the chances that this lady would have such a unique turkey ready for us to eat?

The decision to buy took us another day. Once we woke up on Thursday morning, our minds and wallets were in acccordance. We walked over to turkey´s house, brought it over to our fire pit, laid its head on a makeshift chopping block, and took its head off with one smooth gesture of the machete. We then proceeded to defeather, clean the insides, and cut up for cooking. Without a rotisserie spit, it would have been difficult to roast a whole turkey over an open fire. So, we grilled as though it were midsummer in the northeast. Some of the tastiest and most unique turkey I have ever had, enjoyed under the shade of tropical coconut trees, with feet in the sand, hand on a beer, waves a-crashin´, and friends all around.

Slaughtering ones own animals surely induces an ambivalent feeling among many of my readers. While I understand the apprehension to embrace this aspect of the food chain, I will also repeat many people who have come before me and say: to all of you meat eaters, this death must occur for you to enjoy animal protein. No matter how far away it feels from your Peter Luger steak, your meat chili, your chicken burrito, or your thanksgiving turkey, this death is closely connected to your food. Modern society allows us to look away and forget this link in the chain of life, but it is still there, and we should all engage it when given the opportunity. One should feel the full karmic gravity and pay the emotional price of enjoying their food.

Click the link on the top right for more pictures of the events described herein.