Entries from Serious Eats tagged with 'chickens'

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Photo of the Day: Limbo!

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Photograph from Another Pint Please... on Flickr

When I first saw this photo, I thought it was funny because the chickens were positioned in such a way that made them look like they were casually sitting down and having a chat. "Hey, I have a can up my butt." "Yeah, me too." Then I saw the title "Limbo!" and got a different perspective.

Either way, anthropomorphizing headless roast chickens is weird.

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Cola-Can Chicken
Cook the Book: The Original Beer-Can Chicken

Cockadoodle Do! 'Techno Chicken'

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All right, everybody, welcome back from the Fourth. Up and at 'em! After the jump, an amusing video called "Techno Chicken." It might be a bit jarring for some of you, but I think it's just what the doctor calls for to jolt you into action for the week.

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The Bloody Truth About Raising City Chickens

Urban farming has become an urban farming movement. The New York Times ran a piece about the expanding world of urban farming, which is taking root in abandoned lots, backyards, deserted factories, and schoolyards from Detroit to West Oakland. The article focused on growing vegetables, such as young spinach and tomatoes.

But many of these hip, young, smart revolutionary farmers tend not only basil and marigolds, but also our feathery friends. Slate contributor L.E. Leone shares her experiences with urban chicken farming and points to a pathological avoidance of talking about blood, even on sites like thecitychicken.com. Workshops and classes on chicken farming often omit instruction and discussion about the grand finale: the slaughter.

The modern, expected reaction is to be deeply grossed out by all the blood, guts, and death. It doesn't quite fit with the super-enlightened, super-green aesthetic to take unabashed delight, as Leone does, in butchery. Not that it's easy, she says, to "kill what I love." Nonetheless, the slaughter is "the most satisfying part." She explains:

I'll own it: There's a part of me that likes to kill. When I do what I do with a hatchet and a chicken, I feel like crap, and I feel like God. I feel alive and in love and closer than ever to death. So I guess that is, for me, mixed feelings, yes. And the mix itself is welcome and intensely gratifying. In fact, it's almost too much. Too swirly, too soupy. I can tell you that the part of this swirl which seems "good," as opposed to "evil," has absolutely nothing to do with foiling the chicken industry or saving the environment or taking personal responsibility for my role in the food chain. It has to do with getting a little bit bloody and gross, like the complicated, hungry animal that I am.

It's almost enough to make me want to slaughter a chicken. Almost.

Previously

Who Wants to Raise City Chickens With Me?
Support For Urban Farming Grows

Photo of the Day: KFC Witness

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It's tough being a tasty, fry-able chicken

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Sqirl scout cookyz
I haz a doodle.
Invisible champagne

Photo of the Day: Guess What?

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Chicken-butt hats! For any knitters reading, here's the pattern, which has a little more dignified name: Chicken Viking Hat [via Doobybrain]

Who Wants to Raise City Chickens With Me?

20070919chix.jpgAll right, all you city slickers. It's time to stop jabbering about local and sustainable food. After reading the New York Times story about urban chicken raising (I don't think raising three chickens on a fire escape qualifies as farming), it's time for all of us to put our money where our mouths are by eating eggs and even chicken we've raised in our apartments.

How do we go about this seemingly insane task?

Don't worry. We're not going to go it alone like Manny Howard seemed to have done in New York magazine. Plus, he's got a backyard. I have a back window with no ledge.

We're going to get help from many sources.

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