Chicken is the versatile fowl. Like all meats, chicken tastes better when cooked on the bone.
The Ross Cobb is a chicken genetically engineered to put on fat in factory farming settings. It grows from new born to a two-kilo bird in six weeks. Kept in poor conditions, these chickens suffer burns to their legs from the waste in which they sit. The meat they produce is without texture or taste and yet they are the provenance of over 99% of the chicken meat consumed in the UK. Since 1960 the average slaughter age of chickens has come down from 80 days to 37 days. To quote Chris Frederick of the Farmyard Chicken Company: “That’s why most chicken is as cheap as dog food.” He grows them up for 80 days or more.
You may know of his narrow-breasted French chickens which sell in the UK as ‘Label Anglais’. Although he also sells a larger-breasted ‘Special Reserve’ he prefers the former. He says that the size of breast meat is in inverse proportion to the flavour.
In my childhood, the meat of treats, of Easter lunch and holiday suppers, was a good tasty chicken. Beef and lamb were relatively cheap. Now, we expect to pay next to nothing for a chicken and, if we do, a Ross Cobb is what we are likely to get. It really is worth paying the extra for something which has led a decent life and ends up providing a memorable meal.
