Turkeys have long had reason to dread winter. The cold, wet and dark are deadly enough, and the goodwill of the season seems to extend to the bird only for its tastiness, availability and affordability.
The turkey, or Meleagris spp., has been a staple in western feasting culture since Henry VIII purportedly gobbled on a meaty, tender drumstick in place of the usual stringy swan or peacock legs available at his banquets.
“What beast is this that is laid to rest on my trencher here before me now?” he may have asked about the North America fowl, while a lutist plinked out Greensleeves nearby.
He would have said it in French, of course. H. Rex 8’s court ate with their fingers and blew their noses on the table linens, but they conversed sophisticatedly in a language foreign to most of their servants and other Renaissance English hoi-polloi.
The large ground-feeding bird we call turkey apparently became a choice Christmas protein among the British Empire’s upper and middle classes during the 19th century.
Most regular urban folk, however, settled for more affordable Christmas chicken or geese or whatever until post-Second World War advances in technology reduced the cost of turkey breeding and farming.
And so things basted and simmered for a century.
Then, these past two years, the approach to the winter holidays suddenly has become more uncertain for the birds.
COVID happened first. Although the disease doesn’t infect birds, it upset demand for turkey. Holiday home consumption increased during the pandemic, while overall demand for the birds fell, thanks to food service and retail sector restrictions.
Fewer turkeys raised for the table usually means fewer turkeys. That moderates any good news for cocks of the walk strutting about demanding freedom from chopping blocks.
Fraser Valley turkeys faced further challenges. Two per cent of the annual B.C. turkey production was lost in last year’s floods — not a large proportion but bad luck for the few thousand individual birds caught in them.
Flooded roads and washed-out bridges were hurdles for farmers to get the rest of the Lower Mainland birds to market.
Then, also late last year, birds’ own pandemic hit. A highly infectious and deadly strain of bird flu has infected thousands of farms across North America, Europe, Asia and Africa.
According to an article published in the science journal Nature, more than 77 million poultry birds in dozens of countries had been culled by this past spring to curb the virus’s spread.
British Columbia’s own chief veterinarian recently said 2022 has been “unprecedented” for bird flu, with more than 200 flocks and about 3.5 million birds across Canada infected to date this year.
Here in B.C., 91原创 Food Inspection Agency data from Dec. 1 show 866,200 birds affected by the disease, with 43 properties currently infected.
It’s reached the point where the B.C. Poultry Association is now warning of possible holiday turkey shortages.
Add scarcity to inflation, and turkeys’ prospects for the season become even more dicey.
According to Statistics Canada, the cost of a classic roast turkey dinner with all the fixings — dressing, potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, green beans, pumpkin pie and beverages — increased by 12 per cent over the past year.
Those costs may be even higher now.
Although the big bird will retain its favoured place on many holiday menus, Dalhousie University researchers reported in the lead-up to the year’s other Turkey Day, Thanksgiving, that many 91原创s were adjusting their festive fare to pare costs.
As in the days before farming advances made turkey affordable for holiday feasts, people were — and likely are again — contemplating other, smaller and cheaper options.
For his part, Nature Boy is campaigning for boeuf bourguignon.
It sounds like a sophisticated dish, but that’s the fancy French name fooling you. Boeuf bourguignon is really just stew — which can be made from less-expensive, tough, and even grizzly cuts of beef — slowly simmered for hours and hours with a decent red wine, seasonings and aromatic vegetables.
“What stew is this that smells so rich and hits the spot so readily?” Nature Boy might say in French, with or without Renaissance lute music plinking in the background.
Stew is fine, but cutlery is mandatory, and no one’s allowed to wipe their nose on the tablecloth.
