Top-tier Turkeys from an East Bay Standard
Even though the turkey meal remains the centerpiece of many Thanksgiving meals, and though it often provides people of different politics and personal tastes the one item around which they can form a positive consensus, the pursuit of the perfect bird can be a vexing and somewhat ambiguous task. Beyond the many culinary questions to be answered—what to stuff it with, whether to brine or not to brine, which color meat gets cranberry sauce and which gravy?—there are questions of cost and of conscience.
Although they might look alike on the table, two turkeys might have very different tales about how they ended up on one’s best family silverware. Thankfully, there’s a nearby, Benician-run store that sells meat and poultry prepared according to only the highest standards of ethics and taste.
Baron’s Meat & Poultry opened six years ago in the Alameda Marketplace and is still headed by David Samiljam, a Benicia resident since 2002.
Baron’s boasts a range of meat perhaps wider than the average omnivore’s palette. The website brims with gusto for eating and advertises beef, veal, pork, lamb, rabbit, buffalo, chicken, turkey, goose, and duck. Even the purest turkey devotee might be tempted to toss out tradition in favor of a “Black Dragon Marinated Tri-tip” or “Sesame Marinated Pork Loin.” But thankfully, the turkey sounds tasty too. The business’s heritage holiday turkey comes from Pittman Farms (located in Fresno County) and according to Baron’s website, “is an heirloom breed of turkey, which retains its dark plumage, its ability to fly, and its excellent flavor…the same flavor people enjoyed generations ago.”
And the bird is no exception: all the animals who have the (admittedly relative) good fortune to become Baron’s products have been treated humanely, fed on “human-grade vegetarian feed,” and there are no hormones or antibiotics, only the good stuff. The shop’s website features a long list of their healthy/ethical values sure to appease even the wariest of meat-eaters. Samiljan sums up his store’s differences from his competitors thus: “we’re the good guys.” To order one of Barron’s fine turkeys, visit the store, call or order online.
1650 Park St # D
Alameda, CA 94501
(510) 864-1915
http://www.baronsmeats.com
