Designer Turkey?

Thanksgiving is about giving thanks for your many blessings and spending time with friends and family and enjoying each others company.    But of late, it's also been about good food and, of course, shopping. 


Nothing has screamed thanksgiving as much as the turkey, and American food marketers have found a way to take a random $16 bird and turn it into a $200 delicacy.


In New York City,  "designer turkeys" are flying off store shelves - even at prices as high as $14 a pound.
That's a $168 dent in your Thanksgiving budget if you're hunting a tasty 12-pounder.
A pair of Good Shepherd Poultry Ranch Heritage free-range turkeys, went for $200 last week, priced at $11 a pound.  Good Shepherd turkeys have been dubbed the "Mercedes-Benz" of birds.
Still the Good Shepherd turkeys priced $3 less than the D'Artagnan wild turkey, selling for $14 a pound, that looked like a runway model version of the holiday staple - pale, thin, and overpriced. D'Artagnan's website boasts that their turkeys are "farm-raised from the original wild breed."
Still, there are plenty of options for cost-conscious turkey lovers. Chains like Pathmark and Key Food were hawking their plump poultry yesterday for as low as 39 cents a pound.
Shoppers at Pathmark on Atlantic Ave. in Brooklyn said they couldn't care less if their dead bird had a happy life - it just needs to taste good.