[Sca-cooks] washing birds

[Diana Skaggs]

I wish I'd heard about this 40 years ago when we were butchering 4 or 5
dozen chickens at a time. We used the same assembly line process. Our entire
family was involved in the process. Nowdays, I only do 5 or 6 birds at a
time, since I'm by myself. But I'll file the info away, just in case.

This does bring back memories. Instead of little marks on the wall to show
how tall we were getting, we knew how we were growing up by the food
processing jobs we attained each year. It was really easy to tell when we
were putting up corn.  When I was really young, all I got to do was shuck
the corn. Then I moved up to removing the silks and washing the ears. I was
so proud the first year I got to use a knife to take the end off of the
cobs! Then, to remove the corn from the cobs. After that it was just another
job.

Liadan
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sayyida Halima al-Shafi'i of Raven's Cove" <lkuney at ec.rr.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2003 5:23 AM
Subject: [Sca-cooks] washing birds


> So, you get the assembly line thing going.  Kind of like when
> everything in the garden matures and is ready to be canned at the same
> time <g>.  We threw the chickens in the washer with a few towels and
> plain water, and let them agitate for a while.  Not an entire wash/rinse
> cycle, which was not possible anyway as we were using a wringer washer.
>  But it did beat washing each chicken carcass by hand.
>
> At the beginning and end of butchering, the washer was cleaned and
> filled with bleach water to sanitize.  There really wasn't a problem
> with bits of flesh or anything.