I know a lot of hunters think its OK to take only the breast meat from a wild turkey and dump the rest of the bird. In fact it seems really common, which makes me a little frustrated and a little sad. I think the reasons for this are mostly people not knowing how to prepare the other meat combined with not understanding how birds are put together and how much other meat there is.
Turns out the breast is a little less than half the meat on a gobbler, I even put a scale to it to verify that. This is equivalent to only taking the hindquarters off a deer....something any decent deer hunter would agree is unacceptable waste.
These are the major parts off a bird I shot the other day.
Breast - pretty much everybody knows what to do with this I would hope
Lower wings - these have a lot more meat on them than most people realize, and in my opinion is the tastiest meat on the bird. Upper wings don't really have any meat on them so you can cut off the wing tips at the joint.
Drumsticks - these are a big reason the rest of the bird gets a bad rap. Yes, they have a bunch of fine bones in them and you cook them dry, they are going to be impenetrable....but slow cook them in a broth for a full day and everything falls apart, delicious. Even on a 3-4 year old hill country gobbler. Makes a great stock for turkey noodle soup or something like that.
Thighs- seems like some hunters don't even know these exist! Big chunks of meat - and NO SMALL BONES unlike drumsticks.
I did not get the giblets in the picture, but turkey heart and gizzard is pretty good.
I really like to skin my birds, works great. Slit it down the breast and just pull the skin off each side. I used to pluck them, it took a lot longer but the skin can help add some moisture to the mean...more on that later.
The biggest thing about wild turkey is if you cook it dry its going to be crap. There is not much fat on the bird and its not injected full of water like store bought birds. Cook it in a broth, slow cooker, or fryer and you get great results. Lots of good recipes on the web. I use a crockpot/slow cooker 90% of the time anymore. Just DON't DRY ROAST any of it like a store bought bird.
Anyway, I just wanted to share some information, hopefully will get some hunters to reconsider taking just the breast. If you are going to waste half the meat, maybe you should reconsider going turkey hunting in the first place. Don't take that the wrong way, I think a lot of good, thoughtful, hunters may have dumped everything but the breast in the past just because they didn't know, that's why I am bringing this up.
