Wild Table: Turkey & Other Fowl

European settlers killed off the last Wisconsin wild turkey in 1881, according to the Department of Natural Resources. There were many failed attempts at reintroduction using a strain of turkey with both wild and domesticated genes. It was not until 1973 that pure wild strain birds were released and survived.

Over the next several years, DNR and Wisconsin Wild Turkey Federation volunteers released over 360 turkeys obtained from Missouri in a swap for Wisconsin ruffed grouse. Finally, they took hold. While DNR staff thought the birds would only thrive in our far southwest counties, they have expanded their range across the state to every county, even the Apostle Islands in Lake Superior. Wild turkeys are one of the state’s prime examples of a species reintroduced after being extirpated by overhunting or habitat loss. Today, the population is healthy enough to sustain over 30,000 being taken by hunters each year in spring and fall seasons.

Why restore populations when we can? Reintroductions add to the diversity of the area and give new life to species that have adapted to this environment over thousands of years. Wildlife reintroductions have helped our region recover from greedy overharvesting of several species of birds. “Market hunting” during the late 1800s sent tens of thousands of ducks, geese, passenger pigeons and other game to restaurants and stores in cities around the Midwest. Market hunting was banned around 1910. A lasting loss, however, was the hunting to extinction of the passenger pigeons. These birds, which once darkened Wisconsin skies for several days each year when they migrated, were considered to be limitless. But they were gone from the wild by the 1880s, and went extinct in 1914, when the last one died in the Cincinnati Zoo. In recent years, restoration efforts have brought back not only turkeys, but Canada geese, sandhill cranes, trumpeter swans, and, to some extent, whooping cranes.

Sometimes successful restorations become too much of a good thing and create public nuisances, as is the case with Greater Canada geese. Reintroduction often involves the establishment of a few separate populations in a few different geographic areas. This allows the species to continue if one population is decimated by disease, fire or other threat. The Greater Canada geese have gone from three far-separated populations to hundreds of thousands of birds across their range. They’re now so ubiquitous that public park and golf course managers must employ herding dogs to keep the geese from fouling public property.

Other restoration efforts often make a little progress, followed by partial or total failure. Whooping cranes were reintroduced in Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in 2001, brought in from other populations in Alberta, Maryland and Texas. Nesting success was limited—harassment by blackflies caused many parent birds to abandon their nests. When they migrated to Florida (led by motorized hang gliders) predators caused losses. But conservationists continue to try new approaches, and about 80 cranes now spend part of their year in Wisconsin.

As a conservationist and avid hunter, my cooking often features wild game, notably deer, turkeys, pheasants and grouse. In over 50 years of hunting and cooking wild meats, I’ve worked to learn to properly handle and cook those species. Wild turkeys have both light breast meat and dark legs and thighs, and their carcasses make delicious stocks and soups. They are athletic birds and strong runners and their flesh is not fatty like domestic turkeys. It’s necessary to cook them with added fat or moisture or add sauces to keep them from drying out. Outdoors, wild turkeys are better deep-fried than grilled, in my opinion.

Wild turkeys are procured by hunting, and a hunter’s aim is at their heads with shotguns. Some shot might be found in the breast afterward, but you will see a shot entry point and can remove any errant shot when the breast is cut up. Sometimes feathers are carried into the flesh by a shot pellet; remove them and any bruised flesh.

Many of the recipes I use for game cooking came originally from Europe. With wild turkey, one of my favorites is wild turkey smitane, a French recipe probably originally used to cook smaller game birds like partridge or quail. Auguste Escoffier, one of the best-known French cookbook writers, wrote about a sauce smitane in his 1903 treatise, and versions of it are used for pheasant, dove and other birds.

At its base, a smitane sauce needs stock, wine (or Calvados, apple brandy), sour cream or crème fraîche, and sliced apples cooked together near the end of the cooking time. You can add bits of onion or herbs to give a little more fragrance.

Turkeys harvested in Wisconsin can range from 14 to 28 pounds, so the size of the breast and its tenderness can vary. You’ll want to adjust cooking times and amounts depending on the size and age of the bird.

My own recipe cuts the meat into bite-sized pieces, although some recipes use larger filleted pieces. My rationale is that these smaller pieces benefit from being braised slowly and absorbing the moisture and flavors of the surrounding liquids.

If you’re looking for delicious complements to the wild turkey smitane, I suggest good quality wild rice (I prefer North Bay Trading Company’s wild-harvested Ontario rice, with long grains and great flavor.) simmered slowly with homemade poultry stock, and homemade cranberry sauce. Wild cranberries have a nice flavor if you can find them along a peaty wetland, but our Wisconsin growers will have plenty of bulk berry bags for your freezer this time of year. Mushrooms, minced bacon or onions or chopped pecans are all nice choices for additions to your wild rice dish.