Hello? 'ello? Is that you, Maurice. Yes, it's me—your long-long cousin, twice-removed—Craig. No, not Giarc; it's Craig. That's really backwards of you, man.
Too busy to call you, my dearest relative (not)? You bet I've been busy. Why, just yesterday our family butchered about 150 chickens. No, I didn't do the actual killing; I left that to someone with more moxie. You might say that in terms of butchering the birds, I simply don't have the guts, and after the slaughtering, neither do the chickens.
No, just a little poultry humour for you, Maurice, just a little humour.
You know, it's quite a process from start to finish. They've got to be penned up well for around ten weeks as we raise them, and all along, they need to be well-watered and well-fed. And you can't feed them what you don't want to eat, because in the end, you're going to get it, too—if you get my drift.
Kind of adds credence to the phrase, "garbage in, garbage out."
Anyways, once el head is separated from yon carcass, the next station (we use the word "station'; it sounds more sophisticated) is the scalding. Scalding is the dipping-in-hot-water procedure, and that's my specialty. In other words, I dip the beakless, bloody body into the boiling bin. This is one time, you might say, that I enjoy being in hot water.
There's a real science here, Maurice, and it's all a matter of timing: Not long enough, and the feathers are pain to pull out; too long, and it's fried chicken without the fryer.
This step (or stage) is followed by the plucker. We bought a marvelous plucker recently and it does wonders. Two birds are dropped into this spin-cycle machine, with the rubber fingers and all, and it makes quite a scene. It takes about a minute for them to come out; they're so stark naked, it's almost immoral. This new plucker does such a wonderful job that there are very few pinfeathers to pull out. Most feathers that don't get plucked are usually stuck in the armpit—or would that be wingpit?
Then the really gross job—gutting. There is quite an art there: The gutting team needs to stick their respective hands in an unmentionable to hole pull out everything that isn't fastened down. Sometime the hearts and livers are set aside for food, as there are people in our culture who actually eat them. (Maurice, between you and me, I'm thinking they are the same people who eat lentils and asparagus.)
Finally, the Quality Control Manager (also known as my eldest daughter—that would be your fourth cousin, twice-removed) takes over. Her duties include the following: Make sure the bird is dead, scalded, plucked, and gutted; after fixing up other workers' possible mistakes (not mine, of course), she then weighs the birds, bags them, and plops them into the freezer.
We sure like eating our own chicken. We also raise them as an opportunity for one of our boys to earn a little money on the side. He needs to know that good things happen to those who work hard, that something doesn't simply show up on the dinner plate. It takes prepping and planning, sweating and slaughtering, guarding and gutting. He, along with the rest of us, is learning some valuable life lessons in this.
In this day of pre-packaged, processed, and preserved food stuff, it is very gratifying to know what you're eating. Only my hairdresser (just an expression, Maurice, just an expression) knows for sure where that milk came from, or how that beef was raised. And somehow, the term "long shelf life" has become a very positive thing. One wonders what keeps food "fresh" for months at a time.
That's okay for hiking munchies or survival kits, but for everyday food fare, fresher is always better, whenever possible. Raising one's own food is the ideal, but it's not realistic, of course. That's why we need to support local market gardens, namely, weekend farmers' markets and roadside gardens.
Oh, by the way, if you're interested, I have some Kentucky Fried Hearts and Livers for sale. They're packaged right alongside the lentils and asparagus.
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