Amish Turkeys

This one comes in a little bit late, but still. It was quite the experience.

On the morning before Thanksgiving, N and I drove with N's sister and kids to where the Amish live. This is in southeastern Iowa, near Iowa City: rolling hills, brown fields where the corn was harvested, and greeny-gray along the margins, the lines between the fields. It was snowing already. We pulled off the high way, and onto a two lane road. Each subsequent turn brought us down narrower and narrower roads, through a town that was just an intersection, and finally, down a dirt road that led to the farm. As we drove up, I saw a pen of turkeys. White and tall with red heads, the turkeys struck the eye brightly against the browns and greys and muted greens of the land and buildings.

We pulled up to the barn, and a young women with a pale kerchief tied around her head came to meet us. Her blue rubber apron was spattered with traces of turkey blood and downy white feathers. No turkeys in sight anymore--were they out back? In the shadows of the barn was a buggy. No horses, though. Just the buggy--alone in the barn, in the dark, it seemed more like a relic, like probably the Amish didn't even use it. But N tells me that he saw a horse and buggy team driving down the street on our way back (I should have paid more attention).

In german accented english, the the turkey-spattered woman (girl?) asked us how big a turkey we wanted, and we discussed it for a while. N's sister said later that the amish speak a german dialect you wouldn't be able to understand if you spoke German from Germany. In front of the woman was a collapsible table holding two bagged 26 pound turkeys. Behind the woman was a water-filled chest freezer in which the turkeys (carcasses) bobbed. These, she said, gesturing to the turkeys on the table, are cold--killed yesterday. Gesturing behind her to the bobbing turkeys, she explained that these were a little warmer.

Right.

We opted for a warmer (and smaller!) turkey. (Still, with a nineteen pound turkey, we had three days of sandwiches and a turkey tetrazinni for dinner.) She pulled one out by the neck and went inside a low white building tacked onto the barn, to weigh it and bag it. While N and his sister paid, I went around the side of the barn, to find the live turkeys. There they were, in their pen, as I'd seen when we drove up. What I hadn't seen was that the pen was built right around the back door of the addition to the barn. Well, given what happened next, I guess we'll call that building the killing house.

And then, the moment: While I watched, a man came out from the killing house. The turkeys scattered from him, crowding to the end of the pen, but he took one, grabbed it by one leg and then the other, wrestling with it till he had it secure. carrying the turkey, he looked up at me, nodded, an expression on his face that, though not a smile, seemed an acknowledgement that we both knew what was going on.

Killing turkeys.

This, to me, was fantastic. But I am rather bloody-minded.

I try not to sentimentalize direct encounters with food production, but it's hard. You have to remind yourself that this is the way getting a turkey is supposed to be, and it's not really something special, or twittish. Because it's so faddish right now, knowing where your food comes from, and taking care with it, that sometimes you feel pretty stupid about it.

And yet, turkeys! The only bright thing for miles against the snow-muted greens and grays and browns. Beautiful and delicious.