white turkey (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Victor Steinbok]

My initial suspicion was that it does not refer to "meat" at all, but
the bleached turkey byproducts that are processed like pink slime. The
slimy consistency and the gelatin that autoextrudes from packaged turkey
products suggest that the "meat" undergoes a lot of processing and has
other parts of the bird re-added, not to mention various tenderizers and
preservatives. The customer service response is only mildly reassuring
that these "byproducts" come only from the breast region of turkey and
not, say, giblets. This still does not mean that skin and cartilage are
excluded. It also remains silent on what exactly is done to these bits
before they go into the "turkey breast". Note that the texture of
supermarket deli turkey is considerably different from prepackaged
turkey cold cuts, although it is also not quite like a domestically
prepared bird.

     VS-)


On 7/14/2012 12:54 AM, Mullins, Bill AMRDEC wrote:
> I wouldn't be surprised if it meant dark turkey meat that had been
> bleached as part of the processing.
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On
>> Behalf Of Victor Steinbok
>> Sent: Friday, July 13, 2012 4:12 PM
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> Subject: white turkey
>>
>> ...
>> The question that bothered me, given that the primary ingredient is "turkey breast", what on earth is "white turkey"?
>>
>> Kraft people answered the phone quickly, as customer service lines usually do. I asked my question and gave them the UPC number on the package. The rep courteously asked for time away from the phone to research the question, then came back four times during the next half-hour to ask for more time to continue researching. In the end, he said that he was told that "white turkey" is just turkey breast meat, but they just like to identify the source of the meat, so they list "turkey breast" first. He could not explain why the word "meat" does not appear or why it was necessary to list two separate ingredients that supposedly came from the same source. He really could not offer a full explanation.
>>
>> I suggest a likely explanation. "Turkey breast" refers to integral cuts of meat taken out from full breasts of turkeys. "White turkey" is the remaining turkey breast crumbs and trimmings that remain behind after the rest of the breast is carved up into standard pieces (it's not clear whether they include skin or not). They are then processed and gelled to produce "white turkey" paste that's used to give a particular shape to the product to make the cuts uniform. They can't call it "meat" because it's processed and they can't call it "turkey breast" because that implies whole pieces. It's like the McNuggets vs. other chicken nuggets made from "real chicken breast [pieces]". The former is ground, processed and shaped "meat" product, while the latter is actual carved out chunks (usually from what is euphemistically called "chicken tenders", which also serve as the base for the supposed "boneless wings"--no, I'm not making it up: most "boneless buffalo wings" are made from pa!
 rts of chicken breast and have no connection to wings
>> whatsoever).
>>
>> All of this is not quite as compelling as the story of "pink slime", but it does point to the amazing capacity of food processors to come up with euphemistic names for the products that most people would find unappetizing.

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