Future
Where the Turkey Comes From the Field, Not the Freezer
On the hunt for wild birds in Minnesota, where a small but spirited cohort loves the challenge, and the cooking that follows.
Kristie Swenstad was napping in the back of plywood deer blind on a cold fall morning when her father nudged her awake and handed her a shotgun.
She was 12.
“I was excited because I was doing what my dad did,” she said. “I was going to help fill the freezer.”
Ms. Swenstad is 36 now. A former high school basketball star and homecoming queen, she owns a tailor shop in Alexandria, a little lake town 130 miles northwest of Minneapolis. And she wants more people to understand the beauty and challenge of hunting for your supper.
That’s why on a frosty- October morning, I was crouched next to her inside a canvas blind designed to look vaguely like a hay bale. She had a shotgun in her hand and turkey on her mind.
The lean birds she was hunting are about as much like big-breasted Thanksgiving turkeys as a slice of aged Cheddar is like a Kraft single. As a holiday centerpiece, their lean carcasses would disappoint most Americans.
