SUNTANS may be considered passe by all and sundry these days, but when it comes to your Christmas bird then, my dear, you want a bronze. The bronze turkey remains - closer to the original nature of the bird - it likes to clamber up trees and behaves much like a game bird, characteristics which the hybrid white bird doesn't enjoy. The bronze also takes more feeding, which means, of course, that it costs more, probably about £1 a pound more than the white turkey.
The bad news about turkeys is that there are effectively no organically reared birds available, largely because there is no suitable organic feed for them. The good news about turkeys is that local butchers throughout the country are able to source free range, farm reared, hand plucked birds of excellent quality. And the secret of getting a good bird is to buy from one of these specialists, so avoiding the mass produced birds that are bagged and gas flushed without ever being hung.
"We have hand plucked white turkeys which are reared locally," says George McCartney, luminary butcher of Moira in Co Down. The other expert butchers, Mr McCartney takes the process one stage further, hanging the birds for 10 days at a regulated temperature, vital for developing flavour. You can also buy boned and stuffed turkeys from McCartneys, as well as ducks and geese. Plus they sell stuffings in a range of flavours including orange, lemon, herb and walnut, sage and onion and traditional. And, if the Christmas feast seems to be just too much, McCartneys even sell a cooked bird, which comes with a pot of gravy!
"I have some bronze, free range turkeys which came into the shop today, just to let people have a look at them," says Peter Caviston of the glorious Caviston's deli, in Glasthule, "and they are the turkeys of yesteryear. This is what people are looking for nowadays, quality, real quality". Caviston's will be selling this quality at about £1.99 per pound and they will sell five turkeys for every goose that walks out the door.
"The goose, for which you pay £30-£35, produces much less eating than a turkey at half the price," says Mr Caviston.
Caviston's will also be a life saver for those who want something completely different, for they will also be stocking Barbary and Ailesbury ducks, pheasant, mallard, wild venison, hares and guinea fowl. "We just listen to the customers," says Peter. "We listen to what they want and we try to get it." Be warned, however, that if you have set your heart on a free range bronze turkey, they will be scarce order today.
In Mullingar, James Tormey of the justly celebrated butcher's shop C.R. Tormey, will be sourcing his white turkeys from Kells, in Co Meath, as usual. "We hand pick them because we have to have the best ones - because this is the one meal of the year when, if it's wrong, you are never forgiven," says James.
Devotees of the Christmas bird divide into those for who it must, just must, be a turkey, and those for who nothing, but nothing, but a goose will do. Personally, I think the goose shades it over the big bird, largely because there is a splendid richness about goose flesh, an appropriate succulence, which suits the desired decadence we want from the Christmas meal. Goose is voluptuous, and smacks of Dickensian overload.
Ken Moffat rears geese and ducks on his farm near Blacklion, in Co Cavan.
"Geese really like grass", says Mr Moffat, whose birds run around the fields like wild things. The benefit of their happy outdoor life is that they develop flesh, and not just fat.
"They thrive on fresh air, which brings on their feathers, and you find with animals that are outside that their nibs and feet develop a real orange colour," says Ken. For the last week or so of their life, Ken's birds are also given grain. "You ad lib them, as we call it", says Mr Moffat, "and once they know they are going to get grain each night, they develop an appetite for it."
As with turkeys, the best sources for good geese are good butcher's shops and delicatessens. Ken Moffat's geese will be sold by Danny O'Toole and John Downey, those fine gentlemen butchers of Terenure, and also by Molloy's of Baggot Street, and Caviston's of Glasthule. You can also find them in both Farmhouse Varieties and Food Experience, in Sligo, and in Lakeside Meats in Enniskillen.
Keep an eye out also for Mr Moffat's fine ducks, sold as Thornhill Ducks.
Throughout the country, small scale producers of ducks and geese are gearing up for the season. Just outside Ballydehob, in West Cork, Eugene and Helena Hickey are in the process of bringing to fruition their fine geese, which will be available in supermarkets such as Field's of Skibbereen and other good local butchers, as well as from the farm. Out west in Castlefergus, near Quin, in Co Clare, Ada Enright O'Brien will be selling her free range geese from the farm. "We sell mainly to country people who would have been used in the past to having geese running around on the farm, but of course it's quite rare now to see them," says Mrs O'Brien. "With the tourists who stay in our B&B, it's a big attraction to see them running around."
Near Cullahill, in Co Laois, Mary Barber will be fattening about 95 geese, many sold straight from the farm and others distributed to butcher's shops in Naas and Celbridge. "If you rear them well, you can ask for the price," says Mrs Barber, whose biggest problem this year has been the foxes, who accounted for the loss of two of her fledgling birds.