Before Butterball: 1910

I've raised quite a few birds, and yes, they tasted richer and gamier than factory birds, but they were also much smaller and generally costlier. If your budget can afford that, good for you, but we poorer families couldn't pay those prices, and once we got out of the poultry business we had to buy the fatter and meatier birds offered by the mass marketers. When you're feeding twelve hungry kids, you don't think about subtle differences in flavor, you just want the biggest meal for the dollar. They still made nice gravy.