Chicken and Egg - Janice Cole [57]
Those of us raising chickens in our backyards have much in common with past generations. We’re looking to connect with nature and provide a healthful, sustainable source of food for our families. We may want more style in our chicken coops and we may be obsessive in our attention to details, but that’s only because that’s how we as baby boomers or proud members of Gen X or Gen Y deal with everything we do. We’re not that different from the folks who set up victory gardens in their backyards during both World Wars.
My grandparents lived in the city and used the lake cottage on weekends or whenever they could get away. They had a large family to feed, and so they raised chickens, but never as pets. In town, my grandmother would buy live chickens and ducks from the farmers’ market, then fatten them up in a small pen by the house. As my uncle tells the story, “Ma learned how to kill chickens and ducks while growing up in her Polish village in the early 1900s. She always said she learned from Jewish residents how to kill chickens the right way. You don’t let a chicken run around with its head cut off, as it toughens the meat. You talk to them nicely and gently so they stay calm.”
I’m told my grandmother would tuck a chicken under her arm, pet it gently, and talk to it, telling the chicken how good it was and how she was so sorry for what she was going to do. She carefully covered its eyes, and then very quickly slit its neck. The chicken never knew what happened and probably didn’t feel any pain as she held its limp body and let the blood drain out. The large kettle with boiling water would be ready, and she would slowly turn toward it and plunge the chicken in the water before plucking its feathers.
* * *
I laid the flat side of my chef’s knife across the garlic, made a fist, and pounded the knife with too much force, crushing the garlic straight into the wood fibers of the cutting board. I grabbed the lemon, squeezed every ounce of juice out of it, and stirred in Greek extra-virgin olive oil, dried Greek oregano, and the garlic. I completed the marinade and tossed the meat into the mixture, threw it all in the fridge, and started on the rest of the menu I was serving that evening.
The day had been busy, so it was especially nice to sit on the deck with a glass of wine after our friends arrived. So much so, that I didn’t get up to prepare dinner. It was getting late, and we’d all had too much wine without any food. The grill was hot and the basting sauce was ready. Everyone was starving, but I kept finding things to do instead of putting the meat on the grill.
This was the first time we were going to grill chicken since getting the chicks. I thought it would help if friends were around. It didn’t. It’s one thing to cook chicken inside, and it’s quite another to throw thighs, breasts, and legs on the heat as you’re looking out at bobbing heads pecking a few feet away.
A recent article in the International Herald Tribune/Asahi Shimbun newspaper reminded me of that evening. The article featured a Japanese high school whose curriculum included raising, slaughtering, and eating farm animals. The purpose of the lesson: “Respect for life and what people eat.” The article reported that as the teenaged students stood with tears in their eyes, preparing to kill the animal they had raised from infancy, they remembered their teacher’s words, “Averting your eyes is the most inconsiderate thing you can do.”
I averted my eyes that evening and made Marty grill the chicken.
* * *
It’s easy for most of us to give little thought to the food we eat. When it moved into my backyard, it got a little more difficult for me. I have a friend whose son took up hunting. It was very hard for this former vegetarian to see her son become enamored with a sport she considered so repugnant. She didn’t forbid him. Instead, she