[Sca-cooks] something to ponder (old chicken breeds)

Jennifer Dobyns jendobyns at verizon.net
Wed Jun 11 06:53:06 PDT 2008


Greetings,

This has been interesting, hopefully I can add something useful to  
the conversation as my first post, a link for the American Rare  
Breeds Conservancy.  They have a section on poultry that could be  
informative:

http://www.albc-usa.org/

And as for period chicken size, my understanding is that they should  
be quite small.  Even by the 18th Century, chickens were still much  
smaller than they are today (my 18C foodie friends refer to the big  
ones at the supermarket as "franken chickens").  Somewhat bigger than  
a cornish game hen, but  much smaller that what Mr. Purdue produces.

Perhaps it's time to start investigating period paintings for evidence?

Genevieve D'Aubigne


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