wild turkey

Up here in Ontario, we are among the last wild turkey habitats to get a proper spring. I’ve hunted turkeys in blizzards, and I’ve been out on the last weekend of May in a heavy coat and toque. Although we are building our own wild turkey tradition in the province, the traditions we are developing are built on the back of a greater historical legacy, one that is arguably rooted in the US South (apologies to Pennsylvania). All the yarns and tales of turkey hunting that I grew up reading were in the Carolinas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Louisiana. It is a staple sandwich from that last state that my mind headed to when I pulled the trigger on my biggest tom turkey to date in early May of this year. I had been to New Orleans pre-Katrina and had fallen immediately in love with the people, the food, and city’s culture. I went once again in 2013 for a business engagement, and although things had changed in the Crescent City, po’ boy sandwiches had not. They remained everything that a sandwich should be: simple, portable, and packed with flavour.