[Sca-cooks] Chickens in Hochee-

[Volker Bach]

Am Mittwoch, 1. Juni 2005 06:57 schrieb Stefan li Rous:
> 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.

I can recall a number of recipes in which the instructions are to first boil 
the chicken and then roast it. No statistics on hand, just a memory flash. 

But I would expect the majority of chickens in period to have been pretty 
leathery birds. They were after all intended fpor laying eggs and eaten only 
at the end of their useful lives. Today's habit of raising large numbers of 
grain-fed chooks for no other purpose than eventual slaughter must have been 
limited to the upper classes back then.

But then, so were cookbooks. So who knows...

Giano


	

	
		
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