Chicken Out
Ever jointed a chicken? It's incredibly satisfying. On so many levels (not the least of which is using a cleaver to chop the carcass up for the stock pot) but knowing that every last scrap of the bird is going to get used makes me feel good. Two nice free range chickens (alas, not organic), which cost about £16 from Taste (purveyors of fine foods, with a particularly good butcher), give up, four massive breasts, four thighs, four drummers and a litre of tasty stock. And in addition to all that you get the livers for making paté. For a house of three people (like what I live in), that £16 goes a long long way, we'll easily get five or six meals out of it not counting soups and risottos with the stock.
So anyway, why am I writing about all that, eh? Well Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall made a television (you remember that old thing?) program called Chicken Out broadcast earlier in January where he compared free range chicken production with battery chicken production because apparently Hugh was (rightly) outraged by the rise of the £2.99 supermarket chicken. Anyway on said show, again apparently because I don't sully myself with television, there were members of the unclean masses interviewed bemoaning the fact that they couldn't afford chicken if it was more expensive than £2.99. These people were the sorts that buy the chicken, microwave the fucker, eat the breasts and toss the rest away. Quite why Hugh bothers wasting his time with these indolent fuckwits I don't know but I suppose there are rather a lot of them. But there's probably not enough time between Eastenders and Coronation Street for anything other than bouts of uncontrolled flatulence, so again I don't know why he bothers.
So in conclusion then, I don't know about you (not being an indolent fuckwit) but quite apart from the moral and economic issues, (such as they are given that for less than 90p per person, per meal you can eat tasty free range chicken) the taste of an anaemic tescos (or sainsbury's, or asda or waitrose or morrisons) chicken is enough to turn you into a vegetarian. And fuck me that's saying something.
So anyway, why am I writing about all that, eh? Well Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall made a television (you remember that old thing?) program called Chicken Out broadcast earlier in January where he compared free range chicken production with battery chicken production because apparently Hugh was (rightly) outraged by the rise of the £2.99 supermarket chicken. Anyway on said show, again apparently because I don't sully myself with television, there were members of the unclean masses interviewed bemoaning the fact that they couldn't afford chicken if it was more expensive than £2.99. These people were the sorts that buy the chicken, microwave the fucker, eat the breasts and toss the rest away. Quite why Hugh bothers wasting his time with these indolent fuckwits I don't know but I suppose there are rather a lot of them. But there's probably not enough time between Eastenders and Coronation Street for anything other than bouts of uncontrolled flatulence, so again I don't know why he bothers.
So in conclusion then, I don't know about you (not being an indolent fuckwit) but quite apart from the moral and economic issues, (such as they are given that for less than 90p per person, per meal you can eat tasty free range chicken) the taste of an anaemic tescos (or sainsbury's, or asda or waitrose or morrisons) chicken is enough to turn you into a vegetarian. And fuck me that's saying something.
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OK I must take issue here. I agree whole-heartedly, kidneyedly or whatever with the thrust of this but I guess he's bothering to try and educate and alas there may actually be some of the aforementioned 'indolent masses' who genuinely don't have the time to bone a chicken, make some pate etc. Especially, single parents with kids might find this mildly less important than fetching their kids from school in between holding down several part time jobs amongst other things.
Flame here ->
I would be prepared to admit there would be huge number of peops doing exactly as Chris suggests but I would also put forward the idea that there would be some very angry readers right now also.
Anyway, yes the stock smells good and there's something earthly about manhandling the thing for sure and yes it is satisfying using all of it. I've seen recipes for the claws also but they never seem to come with the bird. Guess they got away. Where do the claws go? Chicken McNuggets?
And another thing? Do you actually know that all the rest of the chicken is thrown away by companies/supermarkets selling cheaper broiler farm chickens? These guys are serious profit makers and I would be fairly certain they use at least some of what you don't get (even if not for moral reasons) for other purposes.
Supermarkets are also some of the countries most efficient transporters of food and I know the farmer's markets do sell fantastically better quality but there's no reason to assume you're doing the planet a favor by having 20 half full old trucks bumbling around the countryside.
What is actually needed is supermarkets be forced to act more responsibly by law, meaning they aren't allowed to source food from so far etc etc. Supermarket chickens are super cheap because super markets are incredibly efficient because its in their interests to be. Efficiency concerns drive good strategically driven transport and networks of depots. The morality of what goes on with the animals etc aside, people should be prepared to admit that supermarkets do have some good points and learn from those if suggesting new methods of feeding 60 million people.
Don't get me wrong I dislike supermarkets and most of what they stand for but there is a model underneath at least worth examining. Encouraging them to change is important since they feed the majority and that's not going to change for some time.
BTW I prefer organic and local farmers market stuff any day of the week. I just want to point out that in some ways its currently a far from perfect solution other than for one's taste-buds.
Ideally we'd all just stop eating meat, it'd be 10 times better for the planet. C'mon; I mean let's confess, we all know it right? It's fun to point fingers at the 'indolent fuckwits' but while we profess to know better and still don't act accordingly then there's more than an pinch of hypocracy about it all. I see a lot of people liking meat too much and making themselves feel better about not giving it up by buying differently. I include myself here. We could all get a little more honest about this, that's all I'm trying to say. There's an awful lot of finger point in this argument. But then I guess we'd have to go and live under a rock somewhere and eat mud if we really want to be able to point the finger.
Shit was that a rant? Was that even anything to do with Chris's original posting? I dunno, I just struggle with myself about the whole meat thing and farmer's markets and all that stuff is no answer to the planet's predicament and singling out other groups that aren't FOR SURE doing any worse is a difficult one for me. Just beacuse they draw a different wrong line in the sand.
Oh dear this goes no where doesn't it? Means, 'because I do wrong I can't criticize (god it is US spelling on this site!) others'. (Ah, I go round and round like a fucktard's verbal merry go round. Help I can't get off!!! arrrgh). Not the most constructive argument I've ever made but this is the 'Isolationist' and I'm new here so bare with me, I wasn't sure if we're suppose to be bleak in a 'there's no hope sort of a way' or slightly more constructive.
Don't you sometimes ever feel like we're a bunch of ants running round on an egg that's fallen from a very high branch. I mean it seems to be the case. From an outsiders perspective at least. We know we're not and are trying to act accordingly and steer it somehow but the human mind's ability to head bury is vast and probably as yet mostly unexplored territory :-) we'll see soon enough I guess.
Chris is this the sort of input you're looking for or more constructive? I'm here to please ;-)