[Sca-cooks] Cutting Up Chickens: Was English Food

Elise Fleming alysk at ix.netcom.com
Thu Jul 3 08:42:54 PDT 2008


Serena wrote:

>I have been thinking about doing spatchcocked chickens divided along
>the center line so that it is prepared and served as half chickens.

Ohhh... If I may, I would very politely like to suggest that chickens be
cut into serving portions before sending them to the table!  In modern
life, asking the diners to cut up a half (or even worse, a whole) chicken
at the table, is rough on most diners.  People don't know how to find the
joints; half-chickens don't divide equally among 3 or 4+ people (does
someone get all of the breast or how can those bones be broken through?);
knives are not always sharp... It's a mess for hungry diners who see the
larger chunk being taken by someone two places down from them, and all that
is left for the hungry person is a wing or a leg.  And they paid the same
amount for the dinner.

In medieval times the food would be pre-cut and if not, a carver would do
so at the table, not the individual diner.  I don't think I'm the only one
who hates to have cooks send out whole chunks of meat and expect that
someone at the table will a) be able to cut it up and b) do so in equal
portions.  How have you feast cooks avoided this problem?

Alys Katharine

Elise Fleming
alysk at ix.netcom.com
http://home.netcom.com/~alysk/





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