Chicken encounters

Starting when my mother was 10, she would be handed some money and given instructions to go to the store and buy a chicken for the family's dinner. These were not chickens in nice little cellophane packages. These were living and breathing and squawking chickens, with all body parts intact, and the customer could choose whichever one she wanted.

But as my mother says, "What does a 10-year-old know about picking out a chicken?" 

So the butcher would take pity on her, and choose one of the squawking chickens for her. He assured her that "your family will like this one very much." And they did, so much so that she continued to get sent to the store whenever chicken was on the menu.

Before handing over the chicken, the butcher would also -- this is crucial -- perform certain maneuvers until the chicken was rendered no longer living. Whereas in my father's family such assistance was considered unnecessary, with my grandmother preferring instead to assign this task to someone in the family, although she herself would also cheerily take it on.

My mother's butcher did not, however -- and this would have been a deal breaker for me personally -- remove any feathers. That task was left to the customer, and if that customer was a 10-year-old girl, well, she would dig right into the task and yell, "EWWWWW!"

At least that is what I would have done at 10. Or even 30. I have yelled "EWWWWW!" when faced with much less ick factor than that presented by a recently deceased fowl with limp feathers flapping. Such as a not-so-recently deceased fowl with no head and no eyes and wet stuff oozing all over and a body opening stuffed with little slimy chicken parts that EWWWWW! 

This is why I do not, in general, deal with whole chickens. I prefer my chickens -- and other formerly living meat sources -- to show the least resemblance possible to what they looked like when they were alive. And not to need an entire roll of paper towel to pat dry. Sign me up for whitewashing outhouses or something. Anything. Just not this.

But such a chicken was my cooking class homework recently, and even though it didn't have a head, and therefore no eyes, it still managed to look dolefully at me. It was not "trained," and leaked all over everything, but once that was under control I confidently proceeded to the next step, which was to retrieve the "unmentionables" that are stuffed into the body cavity. 

This proves something, although I'm not sure what. Things that should be in the body cavity, that have always been there since the chicken hatched, are removed, and things that were not put there by nature are thrust in their place. It is a wonder that we are not all vegetarians.

I bravely stuck my hand inside to retrieve the excess parts, and immediately yanked it back out again. "Nooooo! They're supposed to come in a little BAG!" I wailed to the Hero, flinging neck, gizzards, and who knows what else in the general direction of the sink.

Really, if meat packagers are not going to minimize the blood and gore involved in prepping a whole chicken, they should at least be required to clearly note this on the packaging: 

"WARNING: Contains loose body parts. Unprotected hand inside body cavity of chicken will result in EWWWWW!"

After this trauma, handling the rest of the steps was really fairly easy. When it came time to stuff the cavity -- again, with things nature never intended to be stuffed in there -- I stood at some distance and tossed them inside, lest I again come in contact with...with...whatever was in there. 

Following the suggestions given in the course video, I tossed in some salt, pepper, paprika, fresh rosemary sprigs, whole unpeeled garlic, lemon halves, blackberries, asparagus spears, corn cobs, whole wheat tortillas, solid white albacore tuna, Chex cereal, dish towels (100% natural cotton), etc. 

These added some extra flavor, fiber, indigestion, etc. to our chicken, which was also liberally basted with the juices that escaped during cooking...is this whole thing starting to sound somewhat cannibalish to anyone else?

It is no coincidence, surely, that the next cooking course after the one I'm currently enrolled in is titled..."Plant-Based Cooking."