How was it different from the whole chickens we usually get in the grocery store? Did it have feet, feathers, what? Or are you just squeamish about it "looking" like an animal.

Maybe we're just too used to those boneless chicken breasts and other forms of meat that don't look like where they came from.

All you've done here is make me want a pressure cooker! Have no idea how to use one but would love to learn.

Yah, it was what you're talking about. I'm just used to them cut up and not so "bird" looking. I shoved him in the pressure cooker and tried not think about his bird life.

I had a good chuckle out of your description of a whole bird being gross. I guess you wouldn't have eaten chicken at my house when I was a kid. We raised/killed/dressed our own.

Shirley

Hi pawprint,

You should be about ready for a pig, next, right?

But, no ... the next step'd be a turkey, wouldn't it?

o j

I gather you've never cooked a Thanksgiving turkey.....

I could NEVER cook a whole chicken, I wouldn't be able to eat it. LOL. It's all I can do to eat the boneless, skinless breasts. I would have starved back in the day.
A turkey???!! Forget about it!!! Those gibby things in there.....gag!!!!!

I've helped SIL get a whole pig ready for the smoker. Don't know if you're ready for that. I thought it was fun. I know. I'm warped.

Linda

I learned how to cook from my Mother. The first thing she tought me was buy your chicken alreadsy cut up. Costs a little more per pound, but definitely worth it to me.

I had to laugh at that one! Now if it also had a head and feet I might understand.LOL I have "fond" memories of my grandmother standing in the back yard holding a chicken by the head,wringing it's neck,then the chicken flopping around on the ground,headless.LOL Now THAT was gross! But,just a natural occurrence if you wanted chicken for Sunday dinner!LOL

I had to laugh, too, but I am a vegetarian. I remember my mom telling me how she had to wring the chicken's necks on the farm then clean them. YUCK.

I have no problem with chicken. not much different than a turkey,a duck or a goose. I don't even mind chicken feet. Love gizzards and have used necks for stock.

What I have to get cut up is rabbit. I just cannot buy a skinned rabbit that is not cut up into pieces. It looks too much like a skinned cat or something.

I never knew people were grossed out about whole chickens.(?) So that's why younger cashiers will pick up my whole chicken purchase with the tips of their fingers while making a disgusting face. I roll my eyes at them.

Gross, I still remember, from my childhood days, Inez, wringing the chicken neck, in her back yard, and then letting it run around until it deceased.

Then cleaned it and fried and served with the bestest chicken ever with milk gravy.

I remember when cut up chickens were first available, at least where we lived. Surprisingly, it was at Murphy's 5& Dime store, in Washington, DC. Must have been around 1935 maybe. I remember there was a lot of conversation among my family;they just couldn't believe you could by just legs, or breasts.

I also remember the first time I tried to cut up a whole chicken. I had the flu and couldn't get out so DH went shopping. It was Thanksgiving time and, being sick, I knew I couldn't manage a turkey, so I told him to just get chicken. He got a whole one. I tried to cut it up and ended up crying. DH cut it up. He grew up on a farm.

Funny how those old memories resurface. That was 60 years ago.

Sue

When I lived in Spain I'd walk down to the huge open-air market and be greeted by every type of food imaginable, most of it in the very "natural" state.

I would choose a chicken from a line-up displayed behind the small pollo stall. They were hung, upside down, along a wire in the open air. They'd be plucked and "dressed," but the feet and head were still on the bird. Rabbits were sold with feet and heads still furry. One seller told me it was a regulation to leave the heads on so people knew they were really getting "chickens" and "rabbits"!

After the first initial shock, I bought most of my food there. Never had any problems. But then, I had seen Grandma choose, dispatch, and dress more than one barn-yard chicken back home in Arkansas.

There was one small stand that sold "escargot", as in...there was a big pile of huge, beautiful lemons, another one of huge, fresh garlic; and a couple of big oak barrels filled with fat and sassy snails, all milling around and trying to find a way around the rims of salt that topped the barrels.

I passed on that stall, but I learned to love the baby octopus!

1986-1988 in Spain were the most exciting years of my life, in every way, and especially in the cullinary way!

Here is a link that might be useful: Spanish cuisine

I don't get it. A "raw" chicken?? What other kind of chicken would you cook?

I think for the first time ever, sign my name to Ol' Joyful's post.

I hope you enjoyed it so much it got you over your "icks". A whole chicken tastes much better than the parts. You can buy them already roasted at almost any grocery now if it really is too gross.

I don't know why my dad cut the heads off rather than wringing the neck. Right after he cut it off he'd put an upside down bushel basket over it so it wouldn't flop all over the yard. I'd tell you why this was necessary but that would really gross you out!!!

I've cleaned chickens before, from the feathers down to taking out the innards. You do what you have to do. I can't believe just cutting up a whole chicken to be gross.

Sue

when I was in FFA in high school, A big part of our learning involved gardening, harvesting, canning, raising livestock, slaughtering and dressing...and eating!
One thing that vividly sticks out in my mind is the chicken. We had to wring it's neck, feather it and cut up for lunch. We all did it. Probably about 1982.
As much as I would have trouble doing all that today, FFA gave me a very real appreciation of what it takes to put food on the table. We learned that and SOOO much more (business, public speaking, conservation, etc), I honestly wish Agriculture classes were mandatory in school. I could have skipped half my other courses...

I do cook the turkey each year at Thanksgiving and it doesn't bother me as much. It seems more "prepared" and less animal like. The organs are in a nice bag inside & he's frozen solid.

I think what surprised me the most about the chicken was his wings flopped open when I cut the bag open.

I'm just a city boy and the meat I'm used to doesn't resemble the animal it came from. Call me squeamish.

Pawprint-I hope you don't take the comments here personally.We aren't laughing at you.I just think we don't realize how many younger people don't know where those chicken "parts" come from! Especially the ones here who are over 50! LOL

My Grandmother used to buy live chickems at the meat market, they'd take the heads off but that's all. She dunked it in boiling water to loosen the feathers and cleaned it herself. I remember the smell of wet feathers-now, that's gross!

Had to jump in on this one. Mom and dad used to take us to market, downtown, where they had the poultry market. We would select what chicken we wanted and they would ( ring it's neck?) and the dress it for us. We lived in the city, and we tried to buy chicks to raise our own but between my young brother, who thought they were cold at night and the moles that dug their way into the pen, to get the gueese and the chickens we gave it up... We had 11 mouths to feed and made alot by scratch...

My mother used to wring chickens' necks, & it was horribly, visibly, disgustingly, very cruel.

I don't know why anyone did that rather than just chopping the head off with a quick blow from a hatchet.

It's good to try new things once in a while. That's a big one, if you weren't raised to "do" whole birds :-)

I know what you meant about not liking the smell of raw poultry being boiled. I hate that smell too. So to make chicken soup, we bake the chicken first, then pull of the larger pieces of meat for later, then put the rest of the (already fully cooked!) carcass in water to simmer, adding carrots etc about a half hour later. Wonderful aroma, totally different than a raw start. Works with store-bought rotisserie chickens too.

My parents & grandparents would be appalled, but I just throw away the neck & bag of "innards". Chicken processers should start selling them "with" or "without"!

^ oops who was I talking to about the smell? guess I disremembered that wrong, lol.

I have a cousin who lives on a farm and she said they chop the head off and then hang the chicken by its feet from the clothes line for the blood to drain out. When their DD was at college in Iowa City, she loved to bring city friends home for a week end and show them how to kill and clean chickens. It really grossed them out.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned how a "chicken with its head cut off" will run like the dickens, spurting blood and even chasing you--at least it seems that way. I can well remember an uncle (Our Uncle Bill, Patti) just loving to watch us kids run from a be-headed chicken.

Nope, I'm 100% for rotiserie chicken from the supermarket!
Jann

I grew up on a farm with 9 brothers and sisters. We used to butcher 350 chickens a year and we all had to help. We also butchered ducks and geese and turkeys. We had to clean the feet which consisted of taking the outer layer off of them. This was like a delicacy to us. My mom would make 3 chickens at a time for us. My dad told us when he was a kid they had to even eat the brain what little there was of it. He also ate pig brains. I remember when I was in high school and our class started the tradition of chicken plucking at someones farm. I dont remember what it consisted of but when we had a centennial at our hometown and some of us rode on the back of a pickup in the parade we had a sign that said our class was the one who started it. That was in 1970. My mother would cut the heads of the chickens, then she would dip them in scalding water and we would all pick the feathers off. Then she would put rubbing alcohol in an aluminum pie tin and light it on fire and hold the chicken over the flame to singe the hair off but not to close to the fire or they would turn black and then she gutted them. My dad would hang the turkeys upside down in the barn alive and then stab their throat to bleed them and then pull the feathers out

A friend of mine lives in San Francisco near Japantown. She told me that you can go to the market and there are sellers there with live chickens. You choose your chicken and the seller wrings its neck and puts it in a brown paper bag and away you go with your super-fresh dinner. My friend says the line for the chicken sellers is a mile long.

I don't like to cook chicken but I love to eat it! Maybe it's the constant warnings about how unsafe raw poultry is. Whenever I cook it I always bleach the counter tops before and after preparation. It'd be different if I grew up on a farm. Mmmmm! Baked chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy! Chicken enchiladas! Yum!

LOL He is a hen.

I boiled a chicken once in my life for chicken and dumplings. Since then I buy it in the can like tuna.

I forgot to mention my husband has a picture of a restaurant in Viet Nam with chickens hanging by the legs and the heads still on them in the window

Oh dear, now I've got to find a fluffy, cute topic to erase the poor flopping, headless chickens from my mind..Ewww!

And yes, I'm a city mouse, who was shocked when Mother told me she used to fix us fried bunny rabbit before she could afford chickens. Can you say "Therapy"? LOL

Sylvia, it's pretty hard to get a chicken to lay its head on a chopping block and wait for the hatchet; wringing its neck is "much" easier!

Also, I don't know how a whole chicken could taste any better than a cut-up chicken. Free range, yes, but cut-up? How? What difference does it make (besides price) if you cut it or it's already cut for you?

I am not a fan of chicken to begin with. And the smell of raw chicken is enough to put me over the edge. And having to see one butchered? That has put me over the edge. (My parents came home with a trunk full of chickens to butcher one time. Seeing those chickens running around with their heads off put my sisters over the edge. I am just opposed to the smell of them.) LOL And it's only with chicken. I have cleaned and butchered deer and I don't have a problem with that. Other than I don't eat it. Definately not a fan of venison at all. Go figure. :)

pawprint,
Next time make one so it looks like this It might be more "appetizing"!!

Here is a link that might be useful:

Hubs favourite meal is roast chicken. It never crossed my mind that some people would find a fully dressed raw bird gross.

How it got there, is a different matter, yes.

20 years ago I used to work in chicken barns, gathering the eggs for hatching. The birds were all loose in the barn. About 1,000 birds per floor (2 floors).
Any bird that is unhealthy gets picked on by the other birds. When I would see one that couldn't walk or was obviously getting pecked....eventually to death, I would break it's neck. Just give the head a yank and it's neck would break. The first couple times were hard to get over, but it was much more humane than having it suffer.