Speaking of dying, it is a ritual we do here at the Back Seventy Estate every year. At least a couple of times each year, I'll have you know. Well, actually we don't do the dying – it's those gutless chickens who do it. And even then, they're not all that gutless. You ought to see what we leave on the floor, in the bucket, and under the table. Fortunately for them, they only do it once, but we seem to have an encore performance every year.
What we do to chickens, we do to cows each year, too. We generally butcher two a year; – one for great cuts, one for hamburger. For whatever reason, I end up naming all our four-footed beasts, and that includes the young cow we slaughter every year. My thinking is if we name them by meat cuts, it makes it easier to kill and eat them. So that's why we have had such ingenious (my word) monikers as "Meatball," "Sir Loin," "T-bone," and this year's witty rendition, "Baron."
For the record, we do not name our chickens.
If we did, I think I would find it harder to kill them. After all, there are so many of them I would run out of names. Another reason is that they all look the same to me ("Good-bye, Lester – or is it Randolph?").
I think one of the other differences I have noted between butchering cows and chickens is that someone else does the dastardly deed for the cows, whereas we do it for the chickens. By the time I get up to where "Stew" is hanging, it is just meat – nothing more, nothing less. The chickens, on the other hand, are very much alive and well, moments before the executioner - we'll call him Layne -– makes the final plunge.
Some people I know have very strong views on eating meat, or, in their case, not eating meat. I respect their choice, though I would draw the line at any ethical or moral or Biblical reasons for vegetarianism. If one wants to quibble over the inhumane way animals are butchered in slaughterhouses, let's talk. Just don't get sidetracked for some alleged reason, when all along it is is a simple quirk (see last week's column).
Meanwhile, back at the cutting board... The butchering process involves both good timing and good luck. "Catch me if You Can" is the name of a book and a movie; it also sums up the taunt of a chicken. It is nothing less than sheer humiliation when a stupid, idiotic chicken can out-smart and out-run a human. (Just where does that place the human on the IQ scale?)
Once caught, they get beheaded or decapitated (better stated: they simply lose their head over this butchering business). From there, it becomes a skinning (or is it an unskinning?) process. The second station is the gutting (or is it de-gutting?) procedure. I know if chickens could talk, at this point they would say something like, "I'd do it all over again if I had the guts."
Quality control is the final station, where the lifeless, headless, skinless critters are wrapped and weighed. It's nice but the whole process has to be repeated thirty or forty times per butchering, multiplied by the number of butcherings in the summer. Too bad they all couldn't just chop, strip, and wrap themselves. I could even handle a snap, crackle, and pop. I suppose that could be called the ultimate self-checkout.
I don't know if my record has whetted your appetite for farm-fresh, free range chickens or not, but if it has, give me a phone call. Don't "squawk" over the price, please. It might get my blood "broiling."
Let the phone ring for quite a while: I'll be watching "Chicken Run." Also, make sure you ask for Lester or Randolph.
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