SC - different chicken types

[Anne-Marie Rousseau]

Hi all from Anne-Marie (yes, I'm back! :))...
Stephan says, re: chicken tastes:
> 
> Interesting. I never thought of chicken as anything but chicken, However
I’ve
> never classed game hens as just chicken.
> 
> So, how do these varieties of chicken differ in taste? I assume that I
> would recognise differences in at least feather colors if I was to see
> them alive versas in plastic wrap in the grocery.
> 

Based on my experience as a real life farm girl, it is most likely that
your average grocery store chicken is the same kind no matter the store.
Egg chickens are not the same as meat chickens in your modern age...back
home, we would raise a gajillion baby chickens from fuzz ball to freezer
ready in a matter of weeks (pretty amazing, really!) I don't even know what
"breed" they are, but they're white, breast  heavy (snce that's the meat
type folks preferred) and incredibly stupid. Not that chickens are brightt,
mind you, but a good Rhode Island Red is smart enough to figure out how to
chase an eight year old egg gathering girl out of the hen yard, while your
meat chicken can't figure out how to move out of the heat lamp when it gets
too hot.

Livestock breeding as an artform :) wasn't really known until the gentlemen
farmers of the 1700s, so your generic medieval chicken was no doubt a real
mutt. Also, there is a world of difference between a chicken that lives in
a feed yard and one that runs about, scratching in middens and the like.

To this end, when I'm trhing to duplicate medieval chickens, i usually use
"free range". Much less fat, and far more flavorful (no doubt due to all
those tasty bugs they eat when scratching about). Any good grocery store
out here will carry both types, otherwise look at your local heath food
market, or the like. You'll also notice that the skin is much
yellower...the chickens have a sun tan! :)

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