(FORTUNE Magazine) – IN OCTOBER MY MORNING ritual included sipping tea and logging on to a live webcam to watch turkeys. While others checked eBay bids or scanned news blogs, I would view free-range birds running or meandering across my computer screen. The image was jerky, but I was invested: For $89, I had ordered one of the russet-colored turkeys--a rare American Bronze--in the flock visible via the turkeycam. I didn't know which bird would be coming my way for Thanksgiving, so the action was all the more thrilling. Would it be the turkey digging for hidden grub (and would that make it taste better)? Or the big guy aggressively flapping at the small white one (is he building more dark meat)? I didn't regret paying six times the cost of a regular supermarket bird: I was a player in real-time interactive media.

The turkeycam was mounted on a barn in Kansas owned by Frank Reese, one of six farmers who breed rare turkeys and sell them through a company called Heritage Foods. Spun off from Slow Foods--an anti-fast-food nonprofit founded in Italy in 1989 when McDonald's opened its first restaurant there--Heritage Foods operates under a simple principle, according to co-founder and co-president Patrick Martins: "When certain animals are endangered, you have to put them in a zoo; when others are endangered, you have to eat them. It's as if the Scottish terrier or Clydesdale horse were going extinct. The difference is that a turkey's job is to be food, so it must be eaten for the breed to survive." The Slow Foods movement--Martins founded the U.S. arm in 2000--focuses not just on gastronomic pleasures but also on the preservation of a diverse food supply. As part of that effort, Heritage Foods supports small farmers who raise rare animals that are less financially viable than standard commercial breeds.

Heritage Foods' catalog showed up in my mailbox at exactly the right time, and not only because I was hungry. I had just returned from a trip to an antiseptic, chilly grocery store, where I bypassed day-glow tuna and graying ground meat for skinless chicken breasts, three to a package. I figured that getting in touch with a live turkey might balance my processed, additive-laden, New York City life. Also, I should disclose an embarrassing soft spot for animals: As a kid I refused to eat "cute animals," a category that started with rabbits and deer and grew to include cows and lambs, depending on my mood. Though turkeys never fell into the "cute" category and hunger always overcame guilt, I got depressed whenever I thought about the crummy life my dinner had led on a big commercial farm.

Martins and I met for burgers at P.J. Clarke's in midtown Manhattan, a restaurant officially approved by Slow Foods, not because of the food it serves but because its menu and dining room haven't changed in 70 years. Martins has been working with farmers for three years, and last year sold an unexpected 3,000 "heritage" turkeys, meaning birds belonging to the five breeds that the American Poultry Association approved in 1873. (Last year Martins sold Bourbon Red turkeys, which helped upgrade the breed's status from "rare" to "watch.") This year Heritage Foods expects to sell 10,000 American Bronze breed turkeys as well as the heritage-breed geese, lambs, and pigs, and the Native American side dishes it has added to its catalog this year.

I told Martins about the turkey brawl I had witnessed that morning: One of my breed picked a fight with a smaller white turkey, and feathers were shed. Farmer Reese had been concerned at first about putting a webcam on his barn, fearful that customers might be shocked by turkeys' violent side. But Martins was thrilled that I could see how the birds were raised. "We have caller ID to know about our callers, but when we're eating, people are willing to sign off to massive companies, the Halliburtons of the world," he said, raising his voice. Martins was worked up about transparency, an increasingly important issue to his customers, who, spooked by mad cow disease and avian flu, call to inquire about their food's safety. But I was stuck on whether there was any chance that was my big turkey in the fight. Martins said that based on the size of my order, a 14-pound bird, I had a female, and she was probably one of the smaller ones. Uh-oh. It became a she.

Turkey farmers seem like the last people who would get attached to the poultry. But Reese, who has 10,000 Bronzes roaming his 20 acres, up from 500 in 2001, told me he so dreads the turkeys' slaughter that he won't make eye contact and resists the impulse to name them. "It sure is tough," sighs Reese, a fourth-generation Kansan who has been raising turkeys since he was 5. "But I know if I want to save these birds from extinction, we've got to get people eating them." There are just 20,000 heritage breeders left, while there are some 260 million Broad Breasted Whites, the variety created to suit supermarket demands and tastes.

In my turkey's last week, I watched the good life Reese gave her and wondered how she would taste. By Slow Foods' measure, animals are happy if they can pursue their instincts--for a turkey that includes selecting its grubs, running, and mating. The turkeys we know usually don't have that luxury--Reese explained that to keep turkey prices low, commercial farms must cram thousands of turkeys into small spaces and trim their beaks, so all they can eat is a fine mush. Reese insisted that I would taste the effects of my bird's freedom. "You get a better-tasting bird because the turkeys get to pick their food themselves," he said. My turkey would have an extra layer of flavorful fat because it had lived eight months, compared with the roughly 12-week life of a commercial turkey. And the distinguishing physical attributes of my heritage turkey would be obvious. Heritage turkeys run and fly, so they put on more dark meat, and they have long legs, so they can mate on their own, unlike commercial turkeys, which have short drumsticks and must be artificially inseminated.

The last act in my interaction with my turkey was not the reality-TV-style "can you stomach this bird?" challenge I expected. My bird arrived at my door, boxed with some black- and-brown-striped feathers, a Certificate of Traceability and Authenticity, and an ID number. Like so many Internet images--take eBay or dating sites--that bear little resemblance to their bought-and-paid-for reality, my bird looked nothing like her feathered promise. Compared with a frozen supermarket turkey I had bought for comparison, she had long bones and looked almost gangly.

In a taste test, there was no competition. Heritage turkey meat is denser and more flavorful and complex; in comparison, regular turkey meat is one-note and almost spongy. The biggest difference was the heritage turkey's rich, nutty dark meat, the best poultry I've ever tasted.

Rather than feeling the guilt I had anticipated in slaughtering my virtual pet, I was overwhelmed with a sense of gratification in having given a good life to a rare breed. The whole experience lays to rest the common misperception that on the Internet, you can never be sure if you're getting a turkey.

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