Heritage Foods USA
I've written before about Heritage Turkeys (see Thanksgiving '02—though I note the pictures for that aren't working—and Thanksgiving '03). The heritage breeds I've tried taste notably better than the Broad-Breasted White turkey that virtually everyone eats at Thanksgiving, but these turkeys were almost extinct until Slow Food USA took action. They drew up a simple plan: use their network to create a market that would encourage farmers to raise these breeds. The plan has worked surprisingly well; I believe all the breeds are now off the critical list and are merely endangered.
Slow Food USA founder Patrick Martins extended this approach to other heritage foods, but now under the auspices of a new company, intuitively named Heritage Foods USA. Patrick stepped down as head of Slow Food USA to start Heritage Foods (and incidentally, to become a contributing editor to Gourmet), but Heritage Foods will donate money to Slow Food USA on a regular basis. One interpretation is that Heritage Foods is the business flip-side to Slow Food's educational and activist slant.
In addition to the Heritage Turkeys (I already placed my order for this coming Thanksgiving), they sell authentic wild rice and heritage breeds of lamb, pork, and goose (I convinced my mom to get a heritage goose for New Year's Eve dinner). Because they are working with the farmers directly, they can't yet send you a heritage turkey whenever you feel like it. They have fixed delivery dates right around major holidays, but I expect over time they'll build up an inventory of sorts, freezing the meat until they can ship it. It's worth checking out the company's website; prices can be steep, but there's no denying the meat is great, and by ordering from Heritage Foods, you are helping the small family farms who are trying to do things the right way.
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