Yesterday was National Turkey Neck Soup Day, so I set myself the task of finding out just what in the Dickens Turkey Neck Soup actually is. It turns out the Dickens had nothing to do with it.

Turkey Neck Soup is (unlike the equally distasteful sounding Bird’s Nest Soup) pretty much what it says – a soup whose stock is made from turkey necks. It is of course a soup American in origin, what with the Turkey being also American in origin. It’s also an example of what is now known as “Nose to Tail” eating, making use as it does of a part of the bird that one might not usually consider eating, but that really shouldn’t be wasted. As such, historically it also derives from the culture of the ‘Less Than Wealthy and Therefore Less Than Wasteful.’ Good, wholesome and sensible down-home food, which also explains why most of the references and recipes I found were from the Deep South. It figures frequently in menus from BBQ restaurants, so is evidently a staple.

The neck of the turkey is actually quite meaty. It’s fairly tough meat, what with the constant turkeyish activities of pecking and gobbling. Now tough meat actually has a lot more flavour than tender meat; you just need to cook it longer to get it tender, which brings out even more of the flavour. Which makes it perfect for soup.

I can’t offer a recipe here, as I’ve never cooked it myself, but I can talk you through the basics. Essentially, you boil a number of turkey necks for an hour or two with vegetables to create the stock and tenderise the necks. Then you remove the necks, shred the meat from the *ahem* spine, and add the meat back into the soup with more veg and some rice. And by all accounts you end up with a meaty and deeply flavoursome and healthy soup. So healthy in fact, that one recipe I found was actually from a website dedicated to cancer-fighting diets for dogs with only three legs. And the Chinese – always a people given to making the absolute most of any protein source – have taken to it as well. I found another recipe with shitake mushrooms that sounds equally delicious.

My next task is to investigate if it is at all source-able here in the UK. Turkeys only appear in supermarkets and butchers here at Christmas (and Easter, oddly enough), so I’m wondering if I can even get hold of turkey necks. I hope I can. I really want to give this soup a try.

So Turkey Neck Soup Day? Sounds quite appropriate and fine to me. What the heck. It beats Food On A Stick day.