The turkey growing season this year in Tasmania was apparently excellent, with the nice weather meaning the turkeys have grown about 2kg heavier than usual. Great, you might think, more turkey for the customers to eat at Christmas, more money for the farmers.
Wrong! People who ordered a 3kg turkey for Christmas Day are likely to find themselves battling to get a bird that will fit in the oven.
"It’s a nightmare,"
said butcher Shane Mundy of Hill Street Gourmet Meats. Customers are really upset and many are cancelling their orders. Many people obviously do have issues coping with what you’d think is a fairly minor problem, as he went on to say:
"It’s caused mass panic and hysteria. People don’t know what they’re going to do”
Mr Mundy said he and his staff would work all through the night on Wednesday boning and rolling turkeys. He also said they’d have to freeze a lot of turkeys and that they’d be making lots of turkey sausages.
The turkey farmer claimed the problem was a cooler than expected year, which helped the turkeys grow. He said:
"They don’t tend to sit around as much as they do on a warm day, they get up and eat a lot more,"
He said his company was forced to sell a more premium boned and rolled product to butchers for the price of a regular turkey.
About his own Christmas, Shane Mundy had this to say:
"We’ll have a nice standing rib roast of beef on the Weber, the last thing I want to see is turkey on Christmas,"
As for me, its chicken and ham plus lots of salads for Christmas lunch with the family. We’ve never been great fans of turkey.
Merry Christmas, everyone!
LOL! You know, now that I think about it, I’ve never heard anyone complain about turkeys being too small. On the contrary, people are often concerned with ‘big turkeys’ messing things up. Now I can honestly tell them that there is a country where big turkeys are the norm.
When I worked in a store for a few years awhile ago I would want no sign of Christmas at all in my home, when I finally got home each night. It took me a few years to even want to set up a Christmas tree in my home again. Though, I have always loved the Christmas tree best of all the Christmas stuff.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Pardon my ignorance, but are ovens smaller in other countries? I’m in the US, but years ago we lived in Germany. My oven there was big enough for a capon, but never a big turkey.
LOL! You know i think turkey very big