[Sca-cooks] Chickens in Hochee-

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Jun 1, 2005, at 12:57 AM, Stefan li Rous wrote:

> Adamantius replied to 'Lainie with:
>
>> On May 31, 2005, at 4:28 PM, Laura C. Minnick wrote:
>>
>> > If I'd left the chicken in the broth that long, it would fall apart
>> > (as it was, I had a hard time getting it out of the pot), which
>> > would rather defeat the purpose of stuffing it, I'd think. So I'm
>> > back to wondering how the garlic and the chicken are done through
>> > at the same time.
>>
>> I assume that either the garlic cloves are smaller in period, or the
>> chickens tougher, or both. While I'm not suggesting this recipe was
>> done with a boiling fowl, you might get better results with either a
>> free-range or even a Kosher roasting chicken, either of which might
>> need longer cooking.
>>
>
> I wondered about whether this meant the period chickens were  
> tougher than the modern ones, too. However, wouldn't there also be  
> a number of other recipes in which this problem of the chickens  
> being tougher appears?
>
> If most of the chickens were tough, then I would think that boiled  
> chicken recipes might outnumber the baked or roasted recipes. But  
> then humoral theory might impact this as well.

It might, indeed. In addition, I'm not sure that recipes for boiled  
chicken (or capon, or hen, or whatever, and each probably needs  
somewhat different treatment, but lumping them together  
notwithstanding) do _not_ outnumber those for roasted or baked birds  
(which last seem to be in the form of pie recipes, and probably  
increase later in period).

But my point was that we're not necessarily talking about really  
tough boiling fowl or baking hens, or stewing chickens. Rather, I  
just meant that the default medieval chicken was probably not the two- 
month-old, battery-raised, chock-full-o'-hormones special we tend to  
get in supermarkets, and it might take a little longer to cook  
because it's a little tougher, less watery, more flavorful, maybe  
darker meat, etc. Just as a rough guess, the typical modern chicken  
wisdom says you bring it to a boil and it's done in about 25 minutes  
using one of those little 3.5 lb all-purpose fryer/broiler chickens.  
I don't know the preferred slaughter age for a medieval chicken, but  
in general most of our commercial meat animals seem to grow more  
speedily and reach slaughter age faster than they did in period. A  
chicken that takes 4-6 months (random guess here) of scratching in a  
yard is almost certainly going to be tougher than one whose life  
cycle is accomplished in eight weeks with minimal exercise.

> I think cutting up the garlic smaller is what I would try. I might  
> have tried sauteing the garlic in oil or butter before using it,  
> except the recipe doesn't mention that. Nor does it call for  
> pickled garlic which would seem also to soften it. Hmmm. Is there  
> any period mention of pickling garlic or otherwise preserving it?  
> Or was it just hung up in a dry place? Which from personal  
> experience does not give an unlimited storage time. :-)

Maybe. My inclination is that the garlic and the grapes might be  
supposed to be roughly the same size, and a little longer cooking,  
such as might have been necessary anyway in period, might get that  
garlic softer.

Adamantius


"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them  
eat cake!"
     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  
"Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
     -- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry  
Holt, 07/29/04