last night we roasted up a chicken ryan picked up from the berkeley farmers' market. it was a little frightening, actually, because anatomically it was so unlike what i've come to expect of chickens. it barely had "breasts" (i really hate that term), and its legs were strong, muscular, long. i could almost picture the beast, proud and powerful, the sort of animal that would give you a run for your money. (who ever prepared the carcass also managed to pack three feet in, though i swear to you, there was no evidence of a third leg to go with it.) anyway, it was delicious, its legs darker than any chicken, duck, or goose leg i've ever seen. at $3.75 a pound it's not much more than the hoffman chicken sold at cafe rouge ($3.50), or rosie's organic chickens at berkeley bowl ($2.99, i think?)
at any rate, dealing with this thing made me remember a life-long dream of mine, to raise chickens. i really like chickens, not just to eat, but for companionship, too. they are unusual creatures and far more complex than most people bother to recognize. or maybe it makes people uncomfortable to think of the creatures that way since they are intended for eating. so the big question: if i do raise chickens would i be able to kill them? if not, i feel i shouldn't even eat meat. but i think i can do it, because i do believe there's a way to raise animals compassionately and lovingly, and still take their life for food.
i told my dream to ryan, who immediately said, yeah, maybe we could have a cow, too you know, for milk.
uh, no, no cow for me. too much flesh to deal with, and think about how much it would eat and shit! besides that, i don't want to deal with breeding it every year and the calves that would result. so i draw the line at chickens.
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OMG--that is one of my DREAM scenarios! raising chickens! soooo coool. a friend of mine and i even went online and started comparing chicken breeds one day, too.
p.s. here's a blog post about chickens that i spotted on tastespotting today:
http://www.culinate.com/read/articles/Metro+chickens
but if it's the apocalypse, they might peck you!
No goats? The cheese, the cheese!
'They' also say, if you make cheese from the milk of goats that graze on poison oak, you'll slowly develop an immunity. Now that's something to crow about.
I don't think I ever told you that in my early teens, my eldest sister raised chickens in our backyard as a small side business (although this wasn't in the U.S.). It was fun (the baby chicks are just so cute), until some neighbor's dogs got to some of the chickens while they were grazing.
Anyway, we ate some of the eggs and the chickens and I watched a few times when the chickens were sacrificed for our dinner. I don't recall ever wielding the knife myself, although I know I could do it.
Back then I could have just because of my callowness and the society I grew up in. Yet even now, I think I could, if I stop and thank the creature for its sacrifice beforehand. I think this is what saying grace before a meal is meant for, and there is beauty in that -- honoring the animals in this way, if they have to sacrifice their lives for our meals.
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