Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Anthony (who is one of my fav, and if ever givin the chance to have 1 hour with the guy would make me gitty) has eaten some of the nastiest stuff I have ever herd of. And the guy probably has enough sake in his stomach to kill any bactreia that could possibly hert him.

In answer to your question, Um NO! Never. I can barely touch the stuff with my fingers or take a whif of it raw, let alone, put it in my mouth and chew. EEW!

I've heard about lots of people eating pristinely fresh chix (the head is still laying in the yard) and drinking eggs "warm from the hen." This doesn't mean I'll try it. If a person has been doing it his or her whole life, it doesn't seem strange, foreign or dangerous. A lot of the germs that accumulate on chix are picked up in the handling. If you live on a farm and the animal goes from chicken coop to plate, it's far less likely to acquire those nasties.

Wow, all of those years I spent as a child refusing to take more than a bite or two from my mother's chicken (she being of the "it doesn't matter how it tastes as long as it is done quickly" school of cooking)--now I realize she wasn't a bad cook, just a woman ahead of her time. Her microwaved steak recipe will perhaps be the next episode, followed by her Wishbone or Seven Seas, dump on sliced orange winter tomato salad.

While something like 85% of conventionally raised chicken in the store contains salmonella bacteria, if you are buying chicken from a local source and eating it fresh, you should be able to eat it cooked however you'd like. Getting the internal temp of the dark meat up to 165-170 is what's recommended, but anything over 150 can mean the breast is dried out... and with pasture-raised poultry, red or pink by the thigh bone doesn't always indicate doneness (or lack thereof) - it can simply be the color of the flesh near the bone for an active bird.

Regardless, chicken sashimi does sound really gross to me. But I suppose so did raw-fish sushi, once upon a time...

producestories and lemons made me think back... had an aunt and uncle who raised chickens for eggs. Once the chickens lost their "usefulness" (sorry) for eggs, they were slaughtered, one by one. We're talking a barnyard chicken every month or so, not a warehouse. After the chicken was plucked and gutted, Auntie would leave it //on her kitchen counter// for 24 hours -- room temperature -- and then either fry, roast or braise it.

She said it was to "change the taste" of the chicken, which I never understood.

Salmonella? Maybe. Taste -- different, but not bad. Just different.

And the eggs those chickens made? Never refrigerated. Salmonella? Maybe. Taste? The whites tasted the same but the yolks were a deep golden and definitely different from store-bough.

I love Anthony Bourdain BUT rare chicken is not something I could do, actually a good 60% of the stuff he puts down on his shows is out for me. I love adventerous eating but sorry I'm not that adventerous!

Rare chicken? Tell me you're kidding!

warm, raw egg yolk improves everything you put it on!(just like bacon). as far as roast chicken goes, a med. rare breast is the juciest, most chicken flavored chicken you will ever eat. I used to think i perferred dark meat to white, until i learned that the white should still be pinkish in the middle and between 125-130degrees. I understand that most people think this is raw. their loss.....

There's a special breed of chicken, I think blue footed chicken? I saw it on Iron Chef America and they said this chicken is raised to not have salmonella and can be eaten raw.

please tell me that someone has seen the wife swap with the raw food eaters that eat raw chicken out of a jar from their fridge? classic.

i don't think if i was in japan at a place where everyone is eating chicken sashimi that i would be worried about my health, but at the same time i just don't think i'd like the FLAVOR of it. the smell and texture. on the other hand, a blush color in the meat when cooked i don't mind at all, it generally makes for juicier meat.

Not to turn you off to raw eggs, but my microbiology prof in college worked for the Dept. of Agriculture as they were testing bacterial loads in raw eggs and finding out the most cost effective ways to pasteurize them. He told us that bacteria set up sites of infection in the chickens' *ovaries* so the bacteria is found throughout the egg. Washing the shell does next to nothing.

Buy pasteurized eggs!

No, no, no. No raw chicken-- even for/with Bourdain. Also, no warthog anus.

There are people in third world countries who drink dirty water straight from a nasty river. Their bodies have been conditioned to accept the bacteria they ingest. They eat, not only raw, but "spoiled" meat and vegetables. If we were to eat and drink the same I'm sure we would become ill. Americans have trouble drinking water in Mexico! I, for one, would never in a million years eat raw chicken no matter how it is prepared.

When it comes to raw chicken, my issue is more of a textural thing rather than a "germ" thing.

I quite often will eat chicken that is a tiny bit pink in the middle or has red/pink bits near the bones. As long as the texture isn't the slimy uncooked chicken texture, I'm fine with it.

*shudder* It's like what I imagine biting into a slug would be like.

A related story:
I've seen an episode of Wife Swap with a family that was entirely dependant on their own resources (on a farm) and they ate their chicken completely rare as well.

As long as the chicken is from a reliable source (or not infected with salmonella) I think it's okay to eat! But this family's bodies were also was so adjusted to eating raw chicken and raw eggs that actual 'cooked' food was difficult for them to digest and made them sick (though I think they said it tastes better)

I wonder if there would be more nutrients in the raw from of chicken though?

i for one am suprised by the ignorance of the majority of comments posted here. Jeffrey Steingarten writes about chicken sashimi in one of his articles in his books-

the fact that the chicken could be eaten raw only speaks very highly of the chef and his products, and the fact that he isn't using the industrial salmonella ridden chicken. Remember trichinosis in pigs, which is no longer such a big deal, was the result of extremely dirty and poor rearing processes especialy in diet.

as for those who are turned off by raw chicken- i'm sure it isn't an "alternative" to chicken fully cooked, as rare steak is eaten to well done, but a dish in itself. Just realize that it is possible to eat rare chicken that isn't contaminated with salmonella, and that our food preferences change over the years for the better. Ie rare steak to well done.

Having eaten it on many occasions in Japan, I'm neither an advocate or in opposition. I have alway's seen it prepared in the same manner. First, only the" tenderloin " from the Breast was used. After removing it from the breast and removing the strip of sinue,the chef would sanitize the work surfaces. After the meat was placed on a small cutting board . Placing the board over a sink the chef poured boiling water ever so briefly over both sides of the meat and then immediately plunged the piece into an ice water bath.This technique is used in some fish sashimi preparations as well. While ,I don't crave find myself craving chicken sashimi, I did feel safe as safe eating it as I do most things.

No offense meant to people who think raw chicken is ick, but one has got to wonder how much of our aversion to it is simply a product of purely North American circumstances.

I say as long as its very fresh and clean (we'd all want this of all our food, right?) it can't be that bad.