The basic problem is that turkey, as sold in the United States, is a dead-end agricultural product that has been robbed of all its flavor and mouth-feel in the name of economics and mass production. All these faddist preparations are attempts to infuse some sort of flavor into a meat that is fundamentally flavorless. That's why they all smack of desperation and panic - dry rub, wet brine, deep fry, butter skin, these are all batshit things that serve only to mask the fact that the bird isn't very good.

Can you think of any other delicacy we eat that can be bought for 99 cents a pound? I mean, Butterball turkey comes in a tiny percentage of the price of prime rib and we wonder why it tastes like shit. Think about wonderbread - how much magical shit would you have to do to wonderbread to make decent toast out of it? And how much better off would you be if you started with a decent homemade boule to begin with?

This was the eighth year in a row I've paid $6/lb for free range, heritage breed turkey. The one we ate was raised by friends of friends. It was about 60% dark meat. It was running around Saturday and in the fridge Sunday. I had no doubts whatsoever that if its wings weren't clipped, it could have flown south for the winter. Drumsticks were about the same size as the breasts, and the breasts, on a 15 lb turkey, were about the size of the chicken breasts you get at the store.

We brined it overnight, didn't baste it, didn't do any other stupid bullshit to it and it was impossibly delicious. Of course, that just demonstrates that I front-loaded my fetishism rather than picking it all up on the prep but you know what? It was a lot less work.

And now here I am, stuck on the side of a mountain, eating cold turkey with salt and pepper and loving it.