Keepin' It Local

By Karin Edmondson

Chicken. Must be our collective culinary consciousness has forgotten what chicken tastes like since folks regularly exclaim: this tastes like chicken. Iguana tastes like chicken. Cow tastes likes chicken. Frogs’ (amphibian) legs, oddly, taste like chicken (avian). Jalapeño poppers probably taste like chicken too. Industrial agriculture, in its relentless quest for the Super Animal—cheap to raise and fast to mature for slaughter—has bred and rebred and unbred and bred bred all the taste, flavor and character out of meat. Fitting then, for a nation that dresses the same (GAP, Banana Republic) and inhabits Stepford interiors by Crate and Barrel or Pottery Barn should also eat the same, interchangeable bland meat products. Everything tastes and looks like chicken. Insipid shades of beige and cream.

Farmers like Bill Parker at Horton Hill Farm in Jefferson in Schoharie County are undertaking missions “looking for a quality pig” to offer customers. Heritage breeds of livestock once raised by farmers before the chokehold of industrial agriculture, tend to have tastier meat, are more adaptable to regional climates (read: cold and hardy for the Catskills) and are feasts not only for taste buds but for the deprived visual aesthetic yearnings that as human animals, live in each of us. Imagine pulling into the driveway of Horton Hill Farm to catch a rafter (group) of Narragansett turkeys—colorful feathered clucking orbs—clustered under an elderly tree whose gnarled limbs reach for blue sky. Narragansett turkeys with their powder blue heads and hot pinkish-red waddle and retractable snoods are something majestic to behold: regal, alien and familiar all at once. Even though Bill’s ancestry is English and Irish on his father’s side, the connection with the English heritage breeds has more to do with “the qualities of the animals that appeal to us not so much where they came from. We look for traits that will work well with the type of pasture-based system we use. I tend to do a lot of research to find our best fits. It would probably be easier to have animals that are used for the larger scale type farms but I think the preservation of the genetic traits of these heritage animals makes the extra work worthwhile.”

Bill and his wife Carol bought their 62 acre property nine years ago. Both are native to the region—Bill from Jefferson (his folks owned the octagonal barn in town) and Carol from Delhi—and are school teachers at nearby elementary schools. Carol teaches instrumental band from 5th grade through 12th grade in Jefferson and Bill is the sixth grade ELA (English language Arts), Math and Science teacher at South Kortright.

“We began raising our own animals for food because we were concerned about the food supply and how it was being produced. We then started giving friends gifts of our meats for Christmas and soon we were being asked to raise animals for them.” Bill and Carol expanded their operation about four years ago. Horton Hill Farm now raises 350 chickens, 50 turkeys and 15 pigs, all of them heritage breeds. 2007 is the first year that every animal on the farm raised for consumption is a heritage breed.

There are two types of turkeys: the dapper Narragansett, named for the Narragansett Bay on Rhode Island where they were originally bred, and the more common broad breasted white. Narragansett turkeys are prized for their calm disposition and heightened maternal abilities, prolific egg production and early maturation with excellent meat quality. All of the heritage birds are spoken for but there are some broad breasted whites still available for Thanksgiving. The average dressed bird weight is 14 to 24 pounds. All of the birds are raised on pasture and rotated regularly. Ponies are kept in with the turkeys to deter predators. Bill says, with some amusement, that the Narragansetts “pretty much disregard the netting once they realize they can fly over it. The broad breasted whites are much less adventurous.” Bill hatches all of his own pullets (young turkeys) on the farm. This way “we are with our animals all the way through. We know where they come from, where they’ve been and what they’re eating.”

The pigs—curious, gentle creatures—are Gloucestershire Old Spots or GOS, one of the oldest pedigreed spotted pigs in the world. Hailing from the Vale of Berkeley in Gloucestershire, England, they were once widely raised by small family farms and were fed dairy by-products like whey. A docile, even-tempered pig with strong maternal instincts, GOS also tend to eat the dropped fruit from orchards, earning a nickname of orchard pig or cottage pig. The girth of a GOS is wider than a Landrace pig (the usual pinky white types) and provide a fatty meat that is richly flavored, making for excellent bacon. The GOS were once highly esteemed for their high fat content especially for making lard, which as any biscuit-eatin’ Southerner inherently knows, make for the best, flakiest biscuits. The high body fat of the GOS also makes them especially adaptable to harsh winters.

The chickens are Silver Gray Dorkings, another heritage breed originating from England. Silver Gray Dorkings are handsome, perhaps even stately birds. Their pedigree harks back to the time of the Romans. A “Book of Husbandry” by Columella, written in 50 BCE, mentioned a five-toed fowl. Five toes are a distinguishing feature of the Silver Gray Dorking. This year Bill is also experimenting with Ancona ducks, a heritage breed with a high egg yield averaging 180 to 220 eggs per year per duck. Duck eggs are excellent for decadent crème brûlée and other yolk-heavy (typically French) dishes or desserts. The white, delicate meat from an Ancona tends to be more flavorful and less fatty than a Pekin duck.

Bill also keeps bees and sells 100% all natural, raw honey. His Bee Pee honey is minimally strained and unheated to preserve the antioxidants, pollen, enzymes, vitamins and other benefits that raw honey provides. Because Bill doesn’t heat the honey, it will naturally crystallize. To un-crystallize honey, immerse the jar in a pot of water that is 100-115 degrees Fahrenheit. Heat above these temperatures will destroy the natural benefits of raw honey.

Bill and Carol sell “right off the front porch,” offering USDA retail cuts of meats and whole roasting chickens directly from their farm. He mentions that he’d like to use the new mobile processing unit that is making its rounds at local farms this way he won’t “loose the connection” with his animals. “We need more good butchers.” Please call Horton Hill Farm first to make sure that someone will be at the farm. Horton Hill Farm is located at 127 Horton Road in Jefferson. For more information or to place an order, please call Bill or Carol at 607 652 9450 or visit www.hortonhillfarm.com. For more information on heritage breeds, please visit American Livestock Breeds Conservancy at www.albc-usa.org.