Fresh turkey vs store bought frozen...

[Frosty]

I was just reading an article about blunders while cooking your turkey and ways to fix them. I got to the last part and was shocked at what they wrote! Here is the part I don't agree with:

Symptom: I Don't Know Whether To Go With Fresh Or Frozen Turkey

The difference is not just in the way it's sold -- fresh turkey will also taste different from a frozen turkey.

Remedy: Choose the bird that best fits your preferences and your time constraints. You'll need to defrost a frozen turkey days in advance, whereas you can cook a fresh turkey right away, but its taste will be different.

Fresh turkeys are typically chilled to 26 degrees F. You should cook your fresh turkey within 1 to 2 days of purchasing. Fresh turkeys are often free-range and/or organic. They will taste a bit more wild or gamey, and the texture will be tougher than that of a conventionally raised bird.

Turkeys that are frozen are typically of the mass-produced variety. Their flavor and texture will be more to everyone's liking -- mild flavor and tender texture. The only downside of a frozen turkey is that during defrosting, it loses much of its natural juices and thus its flavor. So brining is pretty much a necessary procedure if you wish to have a flavorful frozen turkey.



Read more: http://www.kitchendaily.com/2011/11...res-for-all-your-bird-blunders/#ixzz1dZLJyyv0

Seriously? The flavor and texture will be more to everyone's liking? That's funny since everyone who comes here and gets a fresh turkey say's they don't want store bought anymore. Mine are the BB variety but are older and fed different than the 'mass-produced variety'. Who writes this stuff?​

 

[Lagerdogger]

Awesome article. Probab;y written by Butterball. I send out evaluations with all my birds, and every one comes back that they liked the fresh heritage bird better than the frozen commercial bird.

 

[ColbyNTX]

That is crazy! Eerybody who eats one of my heritage birds doesn't want a store bird ever again. I even make one every Thanksgiving at my in-laws, one of which is a multi-billionaire who has all the best foods in the world and a personal cook at his house. Even he thinks it's the best turkey in the world and he really has tried it all.

 

[Oregon Blues]

The fresh turkeys I've seen sold in the markets sure look like standard commercial broad breasted whites. The only difference should be that they haven't been frozen. They really shouldn't taste any different.

Maybe they are comparing wild birds from a hunt to commercial birds?

 

[SkyWarrior]

Quote:
Seriously? The flavor and texture will be more to everyone's liking? That's funny since everyone who comes here and gets a fresh turkey say's they don't want store bought anymore. Mine are the BB variety but are older and fed different than the 'mass-produced variety'. Who writes this stuff?

Idiots. That's who.

 

[justbugged]

It is also possible that writer had once been served a freshly killed bird. It would be tough, because it hadn't had a chance to pass through rigor. That would explain the tough. It is also possible that who ever cooked the bird didn't really know how too. So the writer prefers the store bought frozen bird.

 

[Frosty]

Quote:
I guess that's possible, but they referred to this person as 'The Turkey Doctor'. Perhaps it would have been better if they said 'In my opinion'.

 

[toto65]

The fresh turkeys I've seen sold in the markets sure look like standard commercial broad breasted whites. The only difference should be that they haven't been frozen. They really shouldn't taste any different.



Not always true. I worked in a grocery store meat department a few years ago and the so called "fresh" turkeys that we got when we ordered them were in fact frozen and thawed AT LEAST once and usually arrived at the store partially frozen!

 

[Stacykins]

Apparently the bland is how 'everyone' likes their turkeys? But yea, frozen or fresh, any storebought turkey is gonna be a commercially produce BBB or BBW, I doubt there is any real flavor difference between the two.

 

[SkyWarrior]

Quote:
Yeah, I've gotten a bird from a Hutterite colony partially frozen. (Not to insult the Hutterites -- I suspect the birds were partially frozen in shipment).

The difference, I think, is that a lot of the commercial birds are self-brining. The turkey produces inject so much salt water before freezing them that the meat comes out moist. If a person who never cooked a fresh turkey were to cook it, they would probably have not brined it and probably deemed it tough.