Best Birds to Eat

We're a week removed from Thanksgiving and a discussion is had every year about turkey being a terrible main dish for a holiday meal. It's a tough bird to cook and dries out easily but 400 years ago John Smith and his band of misfits shipwrecked on a giant pebble in Massachusetts so now every year thousands of families lose their trailer park home to fryer fires and millions of suburban children load their plate with poultry that tastes like it's been slow roasted in a sand dune.

I'm going on about 26 years or so eating birds. Turkey's nowhere near the top. It'd be more useful minced up for janitors to spread across piles of vomit in the hallway at you local middle school.

Here I'll give you 3 better bird options for you to send your aunt and uncle for next year's Thanksgiving, your whole family will thank me

Chicken

No need to get cute here. Chicken is as synonymous with American culture as Rosie O'Donnell is with liposuction. Go to a wedding, do the chicken dance. Win an NCAA National Championship, eat a McChicken with Donald Trump in the White House. Wanna become a local celebrity, eat a rotisserie chicken every day for 40 straight days. In a country who's economy is borderline reliant on chicken, how is it we have a holiday devoted to turkey? The only true explanation I have is that the owner of Butterball has some nasty pictures of the owner of Perdue locked away in a Swiss safe deposit box. Otherwise my Thanksgiving plate should be nothing but wings, thighs, drums and 11 herbs & spices.

Duck

What do you do when the Bumpus's hounds break into your back door and mangle your holiday turkey? You turn to a far more succulent option and order the whole duck from a Chinese restaurant. Sure it might be smiling at you but that's just foreshadowing for the look on your face once you taste one bite of this delectable pond-dweller. There's more flavor in one duck breast than there is in a full rafter of wild turkeys. Be advised though, mallard meat can be greasier than John Travolta on a summer romance so if you're hosting the holidays make a stop at Costco for spare Charmin extra soft.

Crow

Just ask Skip Bayless, crow is an acquired taste. You need to eat enough of it to get over the initial salty taste it leaves in your mouth. Much like a beautifully marbled cut of A5 Wagyu, crow needs to be carefully prepared but when cooked properly it just melts in your mouth. I say this out of precaution, because there may come a day that you try to avoid the tolls driving down to Atlantic City and break down in the woods of Medford. In this trying time you might be tempted to eat raw crow. DO NOT DO IT. You might think it'll taste like chicken but uncooked it'll just feel like your insides are tearing up. Again though, when crow is cooked to a nice internal temperature of 132.5° you won't think twice about bringing turkey back on the table.