Love the old magazine cover photo, Glenda. Thanks for the memory!

Our meat market has Butterballs for 79/lb. Haven't bought one yet. I did make a full turkey dinner about 2 weeks ago. Felt like it and it was yummy!

I won one last night. It's about 13#. I won't be cooking tho. DD is and already has the turkey. I will find someone who can use it. It's frozen, so I don't have to be in a hurry to get rid of it.

I got one free yesterday at kroger could have gone up to 24 lbs but I picked a 15lb one. I could have gotten two free but no room in the freezer.

I'm getting one from work tomorrow. November is National Hospice Month & all our employees get a turkey in honor of that.

We got ours today--just under 16 lbs. More than we need, but I'll send plenty home with my DD. I just love turkey!

I've noticed a lot of places, even Aldi, having Butterball this year. I don't like those saltwater injected birds. Too mushy for me. And turkey breast seems to go up this time of year. Must be more people going breast only.

But say what you want, turkey under $1/# is still cheap meat these days even factoring in the waste. And if you make stock it's not a total waste either so it's better value yet.

I really enjoy turkey but have been getting my fix at the buffet. So I haven't cooked one in close to a year.

I'll be eating at my sisters this year. Nevertheless, I went grocery shopping a couple of days ago and passed by the turkey area. It was .27cent/lb. with a minumum purchase of $25 which was easily done. I couldn't passed it and got a 13 lbs., the smallest I could find. I didn't want a big one that I couldn't handle. I'm going to cook it after Thanksgiving and freeze most of it to eat it slowly.

We won't be celebrating till Saturday, but I've been looking at the turkeys and was surprised to see they're all labeled "young". Now it's been ages since I've cooked a whole turkey, but seems like I remember that you looked for a hen rather than a tom because of the broader breast. Now they're just all 'young'. I guess they're too young to have sex these days.

Also I've heard that the fresh ones are the best, as that indicates they have never been frozen. However in poking around at the 'fresh' ones, I've noticed the parts of them seem to be frozen. What gives? Are the stores just defrosting them for us and charging more?

What am I missing?

Maxmom: When I was at the grocery store last week looking at turkey breasts only, I noticed that they seemed nearly fully defrosted (well, that was just poking at the outside -- I'm sure the inside was still frozen, or I hope so).

I wonder if it's because many people wait until the last day or two before the holiday to buy a turkey, and by that point it's too late to properly defrost it, so the store tries to get a jump on that for customers?

My hunka turkey breast (all of them were pretty big!) has been defrosting in the fridge since late Sunday. It's getting there. Plan to cook it Wednesday in the crock-pot, which I've never done before (usually my Thanksgivings are spent with co-workers at work, and the company brings in a turkey).

They handed them out where I work, a Butterball 19lbs.

maxmom, a turkey may be labeled "fresh" only if it has never been chilled below 26ðF.

Cynic; So do you think that the apparently frozen parts of the so-called "fresh" turkeys were just spots that got closer to the cold source? I looked to see if somewhere on the label it would proclaim that it had never been frozen but I didn't see it.

I don't mind if a store does my defrosting for me - sure saves space in the refrigerator - but don't label it "fresh" if it has been frozen before, and don't charge me $.60 more a pound.

I assume a bird still could freeze completely at 26F.

I've ordered a fresh turkey breast. It will be around 7 pounds but I asked the butcher to trim off the skin and bones, so it will "net" me about 5 pounds of meat. Not sure what they'll charge me. Now don't call me stupid...It's the holiday spirit. I like Thanksgiving better than Christmas. No gifts, just good food and family togetherness.

There's a difference between fresh-killed, like from a farmer and a grocery store "fresh" turkey. The law says it can be called fresh if it's not been refrigerated under 26ðF. According to the National Turkey Federation, turkeys don't freeze at 30ð-32ð like water would. And think about it, saltwater doesn't freeze at 32ð either and the injected or "pre-basted" birds like Butterball are injected with salted water. As I recall 26ðF is about the temp when a bird would start to freeze. I wouldn't be surprised if it got a few degrees colder than the legal limit in various storage areas. I would hope they'd be erring on the side of cold rather than warm for storing poultry, but I digress. Another guess is that it's possible that when they injected the bird maybe the salt ratio was off and it's the water freezing. Just a guess.

If given a choice, I prefer a non-injected frozen turkey breast (or whole turkey if going that route) for a couple reasons. First I don't like injected turkey for several reasons. I object to paying meat prices for saltwater. Secondly (or thirdly?) it gets mushy. I understand a lot of people call that "tender" but to me, tender comes from preparation. I don't like it mushy. The other reason I'd take a fully frozen turkey is that at the near-freezing levels you get ice crystallization and icing on a bird is no better than icing on a plane. It can take them both down. The crystals will also contribute to drying out the meat, which is another reason for fuel-injection as I call it. Lastly, although I'm not paranoid about it, I've worked with stores enough to know how food is handled there. Even as a customer I see pallets of ice cream sitting on the floor for an hour, pallet bins of turkeys sitting there while stock people are on their breaks, since the union doesn't force them to put the stuff back in the freezer/cooler, they say when the bell goes "ding", the employee goes "sit". I feel more comfortable with a 0ðF bird sitting out for 1/2 hr or so than one at 25ð-30ð. (It's just a quirk of mine. Much like after seeing the back rooms of certain stores, I always put pasta, rice, flour, etc into the freezer for a couple days, but that's a different thread!)

I never cared for Butterball turkeys.

Sue

can't stand butteballs, either..so paid the price for jennie-o's fresh breasts at sam's club...cooking one friday and froze the other....

cynic, lol..still get a kick out of dd2's reaction (and she was an adult) the day we drove by the "urban" turkey farm...they have a free range if you can call the yard they run around in ...but it will be completely empty by tonight...

cynic, Thanks for taking the time to explain all this. When I go to get my turkey today I'll look for the injection information too, however I'll bet I don' find one that hasn't been injected. Seems like I've had good turkeys in the past, whether Butterball, Jennie-O, or whatever kind the store packaged up and put their sticker on. So much depends on what you do with it once you get it home.

In my younger, consumer vigilante days when I moved to the South was appalled at frozen items sitting out on the store floor, and I would time it to see just how long they sat there. I also was fascinated seeing frozen goods stacked well up beyond the level of the horizontal freezers, and stuff still on the shelves months after the expiration date. I know this can happen anywhere, but it was so much more blatant when I moved South. I can also remember grabbing up several packs of blue bologna and tossing them at the manager of one store.

I have 5 turkeys. One is 21 pounds thawed out to cook tomorrow. The other 4 are frozen. I buy several this time of year to have during the year. They are never as cheap as they are now. I have a large upright freezer. I cook them on the grill in the summer time and regular roasted probably in the spring.

We like turkey around here. The others aren't as big around 14/16 pounders. We use all of it too, down to the stock at the end.,