Was it Herbert Hoover that promised a chicken in every pot when he was running for President? Maybe it was Coolidge...
Anyway, maybe that's something today's candidates should get behind. Or maybe not. Because chickens are gross.
I don't cook a whole bird very often, but I just wrestled one out of its skin-tight plastic and into the crockpot. And it was soooo grooooosss! Jamming my hand down in to get the little gizzard packet (shudder) and rinsing its slippery little body off and then cramming lemons, onions and celery up its butt, and then dusting it with spices. It's like handling a dead baby. (shudder again.)
I feel bad about being ooked out by poultry, since I am merely one hop on the family tree away from people who butchered, scalded, plucked and cleaned their own poultry routinely--my mom and her parents, my dad and his parents. Seems like I'm not far away enough, genetically, to have developed the aversion so soon.
But come to think of it, my dad avoided eating chicken for years and years because he claimed he could smell the chicken yard stink even on a cooked bird, so maybe my aversion isn't that irrational.
Todd says that a dead chicken carcass is nowhere near as disgusting as a freshly killed rabbit carcass, and that when the intestines are pulled out of a dead rabbit, you can see all the little rabbit poop pellets inside them. Ulp. That sort of makes the unlaid eggs I once saw inside a freshly butchered chicken seem almost sweet and wholesome.
I know there's a lot to be said for knowing where your meat comes from, especially in light of all these tainted meat scares and nasty corporate farming practices. But there's a lot to be said for neat, cut-up bits of meat from the grocery store, too.
Anyway, we're having chicken tonight--want to come over??? There should be plenty, because I think I lost my appetite!!
