how is deli turkey so different from turkey

Cafe Society
1

they don’t even look like the same animal

2

does your friend want to know?

3

It’s my understanding that it’s brined. It’s soaked in salt water, which changes the texture of the meat, and makes it moister.

4

It’s much saltier.

5

Most often, It’s pressed/molded, I think that is the biggest difference.

6

That’s the case for deli turkey breast. They take several turkey breasts (the fewer the pieces the higher the quality of the final product) and press them together in a mold with some filler to keep it as one piece.

There’s also (I think) a lower quality ‘turkey loaf’ which, I believe, is the ground up scraps and filler that’s injected into a mold. But we don’t use anything like that, so i could be wrong, I’ll have to check on that when I get to work.

Also, one of the big difference is how it’s cooked. After they press the lobes together (before which, they may or may not have put a piece of skin in the mold for flavor) they wrap it in plastic and cook it. For a more ‘thanksgiving’ turkey type taste a store can buy raw turkey, with skin, wrapped in foil, which they then cook in their own oven. It looks the same as the turkey you see in the deli case, but there’s quite a bit of labor and waste associated with it.

7

It has slabs of human fingertips in it :slight_smile:

8

Now, when you say “filler”? What exactly is that? Because most high quality deli turkey slices only seem to be inundated with brine and gelatin. I have never really encountered this “filler” of which you speak. Glue maybe, but not filler…

9

nm JoeyP said it all, and better.

10

The Turkey breast we stock are a higher quality, I’m looking at Sysco’s website to see what’s in some of the others. They only list the ingredients on their site for some products.

I’m coming up with some of them listing carageenen and various starches. One of them said “Does Not Contain Silver Straps Fillets, Fillers, Or Starches.” which, IMHO, proves that some do contain fillers. Some googling showed that a ‘silver strap’ is a tendon, but I’m not sure if it’s considered filler.

It’s my understanding that when you are pressing more then 3 or 4 breasts together you need a filler to hold them all as one piece.

11

I can’t believe you beat me to it…

Joe