As the fateful day approached, friends who had grown fond of Harold rallied for a stay of execution. One, a vegan activist, invited Harold to live out his days in his backyard. Another, a vegetarian, pointed me to the Web site of a "turkey refuge" in Orland, Calif., whose ads showed a minor celebrity giving a turkey a smooch.
But this was not the pact that Harold and I had made. I had agreed to shelter and feed him, and he, by virtue of being a domesticated animal, had signed on to eventually give up his life to me. I had been raising him for almost six months. His feed to weight ratio had reached a plateau -- that is, he would no longer gain weight as efficiently as he had in his first six months. It was the ideal moment to butcher. I had a turkey, if only I could figure out how to kill it.
In the end I turned, as my mother had before me, to a book called "The Encyclopedia of Country Living" by Carla Emery. A self-published affair put together in 1969 by Emery and her friends, its stated purpose was to "preserve the precious knowledge of an older generation of homesteaders." Featuring chapters on how to buy cheap land, dig a root cellar, and put up vegetables, along with Scott and Helen Nearing's "The Good Life," Emery's encyclopedia became a bible for the back-to-the-landers like my mother and father.
I flipped eagerly through the book's newsprint pages until I came to the poultry chapter. Emery writes, "I don't think much of people who say they like to eat meat but go 'ick' at the sight of a bleeding animal. Doing our own killing, cleanly and humanely, teaches us humility and reminds us of our interdependence with other species." I nodded my head and quickly turned to the section titled "Killing a Turkey."
Carla's words of wisdom:
1. "First, catch the bird and tie its legs."
2. "The butchering process with a turkey is the same as a chicken except that your bird is approximately 5 times bigger."
3. "The turkey may then be beheaded with an ax (a 2-person job, one to hold the turkey, and one to chop)."
The night before the big day, I was a wreck: worried, and scared that I would botch the execution, that Harold would feel pain, that his feathers wouldn't come off, that I wouldn't be able to clean the meat properly. I visualized, I rehearsed. First, ax to neck, then bleeding, then defeathering, then cleaning, I mumbled like a macabre lullaby before falling asleep.
The next day, at the appointed hour, the afternoon sun streaked the November sky orange -- but Harold was nowhere to be found. I'll admit it: I was relieved. My friend John had come to help and brought his 10-year-old son, TJ. The three of us stood in the garden, a pot of boiling water and a sharpened ax nearby, and wondered what to do.
Harold was smarter than I'd given him credit for, I thought. He knew what was afoot and simply flew away. But then I spotted him, perched on a low fence, watching us. "There he is," I yelled. Harold stood and adjusted his perch. TJ wanted to pet him, so I picked him up. At 35 pounds Harold was quite an armful. But he had always liked being held and didn't struggle.
TJ smoothed Harold's iridescent feathers and looked with wonder at the giant wattle that covered his beak and hung low like an old man's jowls. I told TJ about Harold's life over the past six months, his adventures, his grief about Maude, and his future: on our Thanksgiving table. TJ took it in stride.
"OK, John. Ready?" I asked.
John looked nervous but steadfast; I could depend on him. We burned a little tobacco, a ritual a new-agey friend recommended. She said it was a Native American tradition that showed the animal's spirit which way was up. In Harold's case that seemed particularly appropriate.
It was almost dark when I finally laid Harold's neck across the chopping block. For his part, Harold seemed resigned, bored even, as if this scene had played itself out a thousand times before. I felt a little like an ax murderer as I swung the ax the first time, and more like one as I swung again. Harold had a really big neck.
Muslim tradition says one must look an animal in the eye until its soul departs -- and I was satisfied that Harold and I had a sufficient dialogue. He did gobble once, a warning sound that he and Maude regularly made, which made me a little sad that in the moment of his death he might have been scared. Mostly, though, it was a solemn moment. Head detached from body, I hefted what was once Harold to a bucket to bleed him out. Though headless he thrashed mightily. I felt relieved, giddy and shameful.
Although I usually call myself an atheist, a lonely universe offers little comfort to a person holding the feet of a struggling turkey corpse. My father, who is a voracious hunter and fisherman and never came "back from the land," instilled in me a version of pantheism that usually has few applications for a city dweller. But being a begrudging killer made me recognize the sanctity of life. I took Harold's life and would literally feed myself with it. It was a similar feeling to picking an apple off my own tree -- I was experiencing the transfer directly.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
I took everything off Harold and used it, except for his enormous crop, which was filled with grain and greens. I chopped off his legs -- my punk-rock vegan roommate wanted those even though she said she wouldn't eat a bite of him. Her girlfriend wanted his wings -- which spanned a good 3 feet -- for a costume. The dog got his gizzard, ground up. The cat jumped up on the counter and ate his liver, which sat in a light blue bowl.After he had "rested" in the refrigerator for a few days per Carla Emery's instructions, I picked off all Harold's little feathers and tweezed his wayward hairs, then slipped garlic cloves, herbs and butter under his skin.
As I prepared him, I thought about how much higher the stakes are when you raise and kill your own animal. Not only had I spent in excess of $100 for Harold, but if he had tasted bad, I would have wasted his life. The burden was on me. But while hard to shoulder, that burden was exactly what I had hoped to cultivate. Meat had became sacrifice, precious, not a casual dalliance.
So it was with more care than usual that I rubbed Harold with olive oil and salt, touched every surface of his body like a mom bathing her baby. It wasn't until I put him into a 450 degree oven that the evening was transformed from a funeral into a dinner party.
That Thanksgiving happened to be the tastiest on record. The meal was simple -- potatoes from the garden, cranberries and Harold. His thigh and leg meat were the color of milk chocolate. Buttery and savory, his flesh was perfectly moist, his skin crackled. Ten guests ate all of Harold, and when it was over, I was left with just a carcass, and all those fond memories.
About the writer
Novella Carpenter is a freelance writer and urban farmer in Oakland, Calif. Next year she plans to raise a pig. She can be e-mailed at novellacarpenter@yahoo.com.
Related Stories
Eat & Drink
Read more stories from Salon's new series.
Turkey fry
An old lover taught me the sexiest type of Thanksgiving cooking and how to do something sacrilegious and preposterous to a national symbol.
11/24/98
A taste of Thanksgiving
Salon readers share scrumptious holiday recipes for butternut bisque, sweet potato casserole, an Atkins-approved pumpkin pie, and much more!
11/24/03
Story finder (3 ways to search Salon)
Salon Directory (browse by topic)