Going to the Royal Winter Fair with our friend Lisa this year was a first for both John and me. Well, we definitely weren’t disappointed. We loved everything about it.
One of the highlight though was meeting Terry Gerow of Gerow’s Roost who specializes in raising heritage breed turkeys and chickens. While being captivated by the many different beautiful turkeys Terry came by to see if we had any questions about the birds. Well, Terry is a pro and he knows his birds so after about an hour of questions and answers with him we felt we should allow someone else to get any questions answered J We truly were very fascinated by Terry’s work breeding heritage breeds and in particular his work with the Beltsville Small White turkeys. This breed was created in the 1930’s and became extremely popular for their white meat. Over time companies started breeding turkeys to have much more breast meat on them and the Beltsville basically went down in popularity. Terry got his birds from the University of Guelph who were finishing up a study on some of the last Beltsville’s in existence. When done they were going to destroy the birds. This is where Terry came in – he took the birds and started breeding them himself to help prevent them from becoming extinct. This was Terry’s first time at the Fair with his birds and he won a bunch of first place standings with them! Way to go Terry!
I learned that to revitalize a breed it is actually important for it to be enjoyed (and I mean with all the trimmin’s) by more people to re-raise the popularity of it as a food source. So this hatched a plan for John to work with Terry to see in there was any interest in trying some of his Beltsville Small White heritage turkeys for Christmas. Neither of us have ever tried a heritage breed turkey before so thought this was a great opportunity to try something new – well – not really new – but new to us.
Since the Fair, John has been in contact with Terry and he has 12 turkeys available to sell if we want em. What a fun opportunity. We decided to send out a note to some friends and family that we thought may be interested in trying something different this year for Christmas. The response was really great. I think that all those who are trying them are like us – realizing that this is a rather unique opportunity – so why not? Did you know that in the US, countrywide they had sold out of heritage turkeys more than 5 months before Thanksgiving? They go for crazy prices too ($10/lb and higher!). I’m not sure what all the fuss is about but it sure makes me pretty interested to finding out!
So this year – it’s something different – we’re looking forward to the Beltsville Small White gracing our table – we’ll let you know how it turns out!
B.
