[Sca-cooks] Chickens in Hochee-

[Huette von Ahrens]

--- "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius" <adamantius.magister at verizon.net> wrote:

> 
> On Jun 1, 2005, at 9:53 AM, Volker Bach wrote:

> 
> > But I would expect the majority of chickens in period to have been  
> > pretty
> > leathery birds. They were after all intended for laying eggs and  
> > eaten only
> > at the end of their useful lives.
> 
> Ee-ehhh... could we be generalizing? Oh, okay, see below...
> 
> > 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.
> 
> Surely. Let's posit that poor people and farmers (yuh know...  
> peasants?) were not raising birds exclusively for slaughter, but just  
> as importantly, they weren't raising their birds in little boxes that  
> restrict movement, feeding them chemicals to make them grow fast, and  
> killing them in eight weeks. So while the standard having-reproduced  
> country bird might be more leathery than its table-bred town  
> counterpart, the premium young birds for upper-class tables might  
> easily have been somewhat tougher than our grain-fed chooks. Which is  
> why I thought maybe Kosher or free-range birds might be worth looking  
> at as being perhaps closer to the chickens the original recipe intends.
> 
> Adamantius

But what about capons?  There are a few recipes that call for capons, which are castrated
male chickens.  Capons apparently are much more tender and fat than their fertile brothers.
And what about pullets, which also are called for in recipes, which are young chickens, 
usually females, which are less than one year old?  I am told that they are very tender.
And everyone knows that writers always crave that very special recipe, called the Pullet 
Surprise. :-)

Huette

>From the OED:

Capon, n.

[OE. capun, ad. L. capn-em in same sense, whence also ONF. capun, capon (F. chapon, Pr. and Sp.
capon, It. cappone), which prob. reinforced the Eng. word.] 

    1. A castrated cock. 
 
  c1000 ÆLFRIC Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 132 Capo, capun. Gallinaccus, capun. c1250 Bestiary 390 in O.E.
Misc. 13 e coc and te capun. a1300 Floriz & Bl. 260 Bute he also capun beo idit. 1377 LANGL. P. 
Pl. B. IV. 38 For a dozeine chickenes Or as many capones. 1398 TREVISA Barth. De P.R. XII. xviii.
(1495) 425 The capon is a cocke made as it were female by keruynge away of his gendringe stones.
1481 CAXTON Reynard 26 He..hadde to fore hym as fatte capone as a man myght fynde. 1598 R. 
BARCKLEY Felic. Man I. (1603) 11 Is made fat with daintie and delicate fare like a capon. 1600
SHAKES. A.Y.L. II. vii. 154 The Iustice In faire round belly, with good Capon lin'd.

Pullet

[a. F. poulet young fowl, chicken, dim. of poule. Cf. also F. poulette fem. young hen. The early
instances, being pl., do not show whether the sing. was then polet or polette.] 

    1. A young (domestic) fowl, between the ages of chicken and mature fowl; but formerly often
used more loosely; spec. and techn. a young hen from the time she begins to lay till the first
moult, after which she is a full-grown hen or fowl. 
 
  1362 LANGL. P. Pl. A. VII. 267 ‘I haue no peny’, quod pers, ‘Poletes [v. rr. pulettis, pultys;
B. VI. 282 poletes; C. IX. 304 polettes] to bugge’. c1430 Two Cookery-bks. 38 Take Polettys
y-rostyd, & hew hem. c1483 CAXTON Dialogues 10 Goo into the pultrie, Bye poullettis, One poullet
[Fr. poulle] & two chekens, But no capon Ne no cocke bringe not. 1530 PALSGR. 257/2 Poullet,
poulet, poucin. 1577 B. GOOGE Heresbach's Husb. IV. (1586) 158b, The yoong Pullets are better for
laying then sitting. 1655 MOUFET & BENNET Health's Impr. (1746) 161 A Law, that nothing but
Chickens or young Pullits fed in the Camp should be brought to him at his Meals. 1680 WOOD Life 18
May (O.H.S.) II. 486 Haillstones..as big as pullets' eggs. 1764 SMOLLETT Trav. xviii. (1766) I.
289 Chickens and pullets are extremely meagre. 1846 J. BAXTER Libr. Pract. Agric. (ed. 4) II. 217
Pullets commence laying before sitting-hens, as they do not moult the first year.
 




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