CHICKEN
I love to eat chicken. And it’s a good thing, too, because other than hot dogs and bologna, it’s the only decent meat I can afford. I guess I could give up meat and become a vegetarian. But I’m sorry—I can’t make a meal out of cauliflower and brussel sprouts. And fresh vegetables can be more expensive than meat.
As far as cuts of chicken go, I choose those with the highest ratios of meat to gristle so I get my money’s worth. That means chicken wings are definitely out. Chicken breast is preferred, but only smaller pieces (the “tenders”) are affordable. Ever try to bread two packages of chicken tenders by hand? It takes more patience than I have.
So I usually end up with a whole broiler or fryer. And yes, I’m one of those arcane people who actually roasts a chicken in the oven rather than buy it ready-to-eat from the store. But I don’t care for removing organs, like the liver and heart, from the chicken’s body cavity. A chicken is probably the only meat you buy that still looks like an animal. And I don’t need to be reminded by having to stick my entire hand inside the chicken’s ribcage. It makes me feel like an Aztec priestess extracting a human heart.
I don’t understand why innards are included in the bird, anyway. Is that some special bonus? They don’t include innards with steaks or pork chops. It gets me into a lather that I’m paying for all those useless guts. In my grandmother’s day, they fried the chicken livers. It must be all those senior citizens demanding their free chicken-livers that keeps them coming.
Chicken occupies an exalted food-position in my family. Where would we be without chicken broth for making rice pilaf? Growing up, we ate roasted chicken every week. It amazes me how one chicken fed a family of four, with leftovers. Now it’s barely enough for one person. Either chickens have shrunk or our appetites have gotten bigger. Let me guess.
Choosing the brand of chicken is a real dilemma. Do I go for the cheaper, name-brand one? Such chickens are grotesquely robust in their proportions. They are a tribute to the wonders of antibiotics and forced feedings. But why should I support intensive-farming practices that show little respect for the animal? However, the expensive, organic chickens are downright scrawny. I guess all that happiness from free-ranging wears them out.
If I were living in a bigger city or Key West, Florida (where there are more chickens in the streets than people), I’d consider buying a live chicken or two. I’d keep them in a backyard chicken-coop and have fresh eggs at my disposal. But I live only blocks away from the county courthouse. I’d surely be risking a lawsuit the first time my chicken pecked someone. Nor do I want to deal with cleaning-up chicken poop, which is unusually smelly. Though I guess if I were a chicken I’d like it well enough.
There’s a controversy among chicken-lovers. It involves whether a certain chicken from Chile has pre-Columbian, Polynesian roots. The inference is that if it does, it may prove trans-Pacific migration to the Americas. That’s bunk. How do they know the chickens didn’t just fly there themselves? Or get swept up in a typhoon and deposited near Chile sans human intervention. Oh sure, chickens don’t fly well in general. But who knows what they’re capable of? This Chilean chicken produces blue-green eggs, and not just for Easter. Hey, that’s one, seriously-capable chicken in my book.
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