The current issue
Neighborhood Map
Bay Ridge
  • Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights
Brooklyn Heights
  • Downtown, DUMBO
Carroll Gardens
  • Cobble Hill, Red Hook, Boerum Hill
Fort Greene
  • Clinton Hill, Crown Heights
North Brooklyn
  • Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick
Park Slope
  • Prospect Heights, Windsor Terrace, Greenwood Heights
GO Brooklyn
Dining Guide
Where to GO
Events calendar
Classifieds
The Brooklyn Wire
Not Just Nets
Police Blotter
Perspective
Parenting
Politics
Transit
Podcasts
Brooklyn Cyclones
Merchant news
About The Paper
RSS Feeds
Avalon Fort Greene

‘Live’ from Dyker Heights! It’s Thanksgiving dinner

By Zeke Faux
for The Brooklyn Paper
Enlarge this image
The Brooklyn Paper / Zeke Faux
Good enough to eat: Carlo Formisano shows off his pride and job, one of the many turkeys that are available for sale at his live poultry market in Dyker Heights.

Tools

Print this story
digg
del.icio.us

Still insist on roasting, frying or barbecuing your own turkey this Thanksgiving? Skip the supermarket and head straight to La Pera Brothers in Dyker Heights — the oldest live poultry market in the city. Since 1946, La Pera customers have been taking a gander at the merchandise and picking out their dinners for themselves. Find that a bit intimidating? Don’t worry. Just call over manager Carlo Formisano, and this professor of poultry will give you all the pointers you need:

1) Pick a winner: If a turkey looks like he still has the fire in his eye and the fight in his heart, you can be sure he’ll taste good on the plate. “That’s why customers like to look at them, and even touch them until they find one that feels right,” Formisano said.

2) Don’t hesitate: There are always plenty of turkeys to choose from, since La Pera sells about a thousand each November, but call a few days in advance to line up your bird or arrange for delivery.

3) Brine the bird. Fresh-killed poultry should be soaked in cold salt water overnight to “relax the muscles and tenderize the meat,” according to Formisano. But one warning about this increasingly popular technique: you can’t make a good gravy with the drippings because the results are too salty.

4) It doesn’t matter how you cook it: Fry, barbeque or roast — Formisano’s not particular. “However you cook it, there is no better turkey than ours,” he said. “It’s a fact.”

5) Get ready to say, “Oh, wow!”: “People don’t realize the difference,” explained second-generation customer Charles Trovato, a Bay Ridge native who was in the shop the other day. “It’s like going fishing, catching something and cooking it right there.”

La Pera Brothers Live Poultry [1373 61st St. at 14th Avenue, (718) 438-2577]. Birds are $2 per pound (live weight). You should figure on about two pounds per person. Hours: Tuesday-Thursday, 7:30 am-4:45 pm; Friday, 6:30 am-5:45 pm; Saturday, 6:30 am-4:45 pm; Sunday, 7:30 am-2:30 pm; closed Monday.

©2008 The Brooklyn Paper

←Boerum Hill: Unhappy meals! Feds say day care honcho stole kids lunch money
→Brooklyn Heights: Heights garage goes underground

Reader Feedback

Enter your comment below

By submitting this comment, you agree to the following terms:

You agree that you, and not BrooklynPaper.com or its affiliates, are fully responsible for the content that you post. You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening or sexually-oriented material or any material that may violate applicable law; doing so may lead to the removal of your post and to your being permanently banned from posting to the site. You grant to BrooklynPaper.com the royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual and fully sublicensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such content in whole or in part world-wide and to incorporate it in other works in any form, media or technology now known or later developed.

First name
Last name
Your neighborhood
Email address
Daytime phone

Your letter must be signed and include all of the information requested above. (Only your name and neighborhood are published with the letter.) Letters should be as brief as possible; while they may discuss any topic of interest to our readers, priority will be given to letters that relate to stories covered by The Brooklyn Paper.

Letters will be edited at the sole discretion of the editor, may be published in whole or part in any media, and upon publication become the property of The Brooklyn Paper. The earlier in the week you send your letter, the better.