The Wilmington morning star., 1947-07-20

For about a dollar you get a
cross section of TT. Turkey, dark
meat, white meat, liver, gravy
makin's and enough bone to hook
a fork into in the carving. You
get it at your corner grocery if
he has an ice box; it's just exactly
the taste the meat had when Mr..
Turkey roamed the uplands of the
pocosin country.
Turkey steaks came about when
the first deep-freeze plant east OF
Raleigh was built by a farmers
cooperative holding company IN
Burgaw, Fender County, after a
succession of county farm agents
had sold the doctrine of poultry
and pigs to cash crop farmers who
were wealthy n season and slav-
es the next, dependent upon Dame
Natures weather and the mar
kets to the North.
They still dump potatoes in the
woods, after Uncle Sam pays the
dole, but they make turkey steaks
out of 49, 900 surplus turkeys. II
the market is right, they sell; If
it isn't, they just leave the meat
at about 10 degrees below zero in
the big ice box. as they do. too,
eggs (but a bit warmer), lard,
butter beans, snap beans, beets,
pork beef, flower bulbs, too.
Just after last Christmas, James
Ward and his partner, Mr.. Wilkins,
looked ruefully at some 10000 tur-
KEY poults just learning the tur-
key strut around the barnyard,
which in this case was some 200
acres of turkey pasture. Folks had
been scared off the turkey mar
ket by presumptiously high prices
just as the holidays began, and
other ranchers, usual outlet for
Ward Wilkins poults, had all the
stock they wanted.
40, 900 turkeys, besides being a
lot of turkeys. also eat an enor-
NOUS amount of food. There's just
one solution in all turkey economy
TO 40, ZOO turkeys; you either eat
them or they eat you.
Ward and wilkins decided tc
turn the problem owe to an exper,t
one Vivian Whitfield, State Legis.
Ilator, expert in human relations.
and great lover of the ways of the
farm. Whitfield called in another
Tar Heel, Lewis Blake, manager
in charge of the deep freeze CO
op plant of which Whitfield is com
pany president. Blake, graduate
of tSate college and of three year:
of the late war. called in a Mr.
Gravely. of Swift's packing-mar
keting plant in Wilmington.
Several of the big boys of The
flock were slaughtered, dressed
and packed within minutes. Ate,
a couple of days they were brough
forth and cut neatly, cross-wise
into what looks exactly like plank
ed steak, on a band saw meat cut
ter.
The great test was in the frs
eating. In the early Spring, folk
the world were eating turkey il
around this BURBERRY capital O
every conceivable form. And thu
Wilmington plant put a hundred
pounds on the market up Nawth.
Net results att he moment, a
the experimenters take a breathe
to gather their forces to make tur
key every day as commc :, and a
delightful, as wheat bread on tn
table, is a huge pile of neatl.
wrapped turkeys, some $1,000
pounds, stacked up awaiting tn,
slicer. What is needed most nov
(amd it is on the way) is a printin,
of how to cook Turkey Steaks.
Right. the card says plainly
Cook as any other steak. But tn
boys know something. Out of al
the cooking experiments and ex
perience of a community mucl
liking to eat, several new thing
have been learned about turke,
meat. e.
They see Tar Heel Turkey Steak
as both steak and turke. A.
something new under the SIN, ant
on the daily tables of Easter
America.