Re: 40 pound turkey

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

>>
>><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>>news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>>
>>>
>>>  The turkey was wonderful.  Grandpa roasted him whole and stuffed it.  He
>>put him  in at 5:30 in the
>>> morning and he was done by 5 in the evening.  He used a meat thermometer
>>and he said the turkey was
>>> done when it reached 180 degree.  He was tender and juicy and boy was he
>>huge!  Here is a picture of
>>> him on the table :
>>http://www.schizoaffective.org/luckythanksgiving2003opt.jpg
>>
>>I bet you were pretty proud of that
>>looks delicious
>
>
>Oh he was/is so yummy.. the dark meat is darker than what I am used to but very good. 
> Is it darker
>due to being free ranging or perhaps the way he was bled?  It was not much darker 
>than normal.   I
>bought him for his feathers, never really planned on eating him but he looked like he 
>was in pain
>when he was walking, I don't think he would have been walking at all by the end of 
>the winter.  He
>could not get in and out of the coop anymore and spent a good deal of his time laying 
>down.

Given that in poultry, dark meat is muscle tissue that is used, their
legs, and not the useless wings, IMHO, the darkness would be due to the
strain the bird was under, and the muscle strain.