I’ve done fresh turkeys and frozen over the past 34 years, and don’t see much difference. From a food safety aspect, I kinda feel the frozen may be “fresher” in many ways, if you have space to defrost it. Last year I needed to celebrate on Saturday, and every fresh turkey I could find expired on Thanksgiving day. So I went frozen. I’ve done butterballs, store brands and organic ones. They are all turkey, and main difference for me is whether I need to dry brine or not, and I look at the sodium content - if under 250mg I’ll dry brine. Wet brined once or twice and it was too hassle for little benefit and soggy skin that needed another day of drying out of the brine and in the fridge. You may want to consider two 10-12 pounders instead of one 20 pounder to speed up cooking time. A big bird is impressive on the cutting board though!
I did a whole ham last year for the first time, with Mesthead’s double smoked recipe, and slicing was a pain. I’m going back to the spiral sliced this year. I’ve had honey baked, Sam’s club and various supermarket or Smithfield hams. I think as someone else said what you are reading about is the glaze packet, which you don’t have to use. Only ones I had that were preglazed were from the Honey Baked Ham store.
I think buy what you are used to cooking, saving the cash, and focus on prep of the meat and how you want to cook it, and on sides. It will be good.
I did a whole ham last year for the first time, with Mesthead’s double smoked recipe, and slicing was a pain. I’m going back to the spiral sliced this year. I’ve had honey baked, Sam’s club and various supermarket or Smithfield hams. I think as someone else said what you are reading about is the glaze packet, which you don’t have to use. Only ones I had that were preglazed were from the Honey Baked Ham store.
I think buy what you are used to cooking, saving the cash, and focus on prep of the meat and how you want to cook it, and on sides. It will be good.
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