Stretching my memory back some 50 plus years, I seem to remember the only boneless chicken breasts came from the butcher. I learned to break down a whole chicken while I was still in elementary school. It was my job to prep the birds for the barbecue.

No wonder they have to teach them how to cut up a chicken on Masterchef!

I suspect it's because young people don't cook like we used to...whole bird for a meal, leftovers used for a couple of different meals/dishes to make it stretch (and not have to cook meat from scratch for a few meals). So, people buy the parts they can use for one meal - and I think families are generally smaller than they were when I was young, so just certain parts for one meal for 1, 2 or 3 people is the way they shop. With the majority of families having 2 working parents, many single parents, over scheduled kids, I just see fewer and fewer families actually cooking a meal from scratch that would warrant a whole chicken.

I really missed the taste of whole chicken, cut up and cooked (the parts never seemed to taste as good) until I discovered Mary's Organic chickens (and parts). Their products really do taste like I remember chicken tasting. Maybe it's that many of their parts come with skin and bones? Since I'm single now, I don't want to mess with a whole chicken either!

My local stores do have the cut up bits, but they have plenty of whole chickens. Good ones! Like Mary's. :) Yes, the skin and bones contribute to the flavor, as does the ability to peck and eat bugs. Mostly, from what Annie has said, they'll mostly choose the grain, but I maintain that eating some bugs helps the flavor. :)

I miss properly shaped chickens! Even the Mary's ones and other similar growers', are way too breast heavy and have scrawny little hinds. Instead of four good sized pieces per half, you get three pieces equal to one breast. Poor chickens can't even walk without falling over. And I want my chickens under 4 pounds! And I want my giblets.

The turkeys are the same way. I have to buy extra turkey leg quarters (if I can find them) or thighs just to have enough dark meat.

ETA: I can't afford the heritage turkeys and all of my family but one wouldn't even notice.

so just certain parts for one meal for 1, 2 or 3 people is the way they shop

Hmm, around here all the chicken parts come in "family packs" of several pounds, and never anything but factory-farmed chicken for parts, other than a single breast from Murray's if that counts.

I wish we could get parts for one meal for one or two people.

There is a price per pound difference, Writersblock, but have you tried Whole Foods butcher counter?

Thanks for the suggestion, plllog, but I'd have to drive an hour and fifteen minutes each way to buy chicken at Whole Foods, and I'm not inclined to do that. I live in an area where our choices are limited and even the actual butcher shops are more expensive but not much better stocked, alas.

My local stores only will carry a couple of whole chickens as well, although there will be plenty of rotisserie chickens. This week the advertised sale was whole chickens for $0.77 per lb, but they were out of stock. There is obviously still some demand for them. And I haven’t been able to find a whole cut up chicken in a looooong time. I hate cutting up chicken. And I just don’t have the freezer room to buy the “family packs”.

And then there is the Godzilla chicken. Huge. The Chicken that Ate Cleveland. A chicken used to be 3-4 pounds. Now they are 6-7 pound monsters. And the parts are even on steroids. I have found that the recipes I have long used for parts like thighs have to be adjusted, I used to be able to pound breasts for a piccata, now they have to be sliced thin.

And no flavor either.

Here today, Chicken quarters $0.38/lb.

Bought 20 lbs to make stock.

dcarch

And I haven’t been able to find a whole cut up chicken in a looooong time.

If you're in a Publix area, they will cut up a whole chicken for you if you ask.

Of course, I raise my own chickens, so I can cut it up or not, as I choose, and package it for the freezer in any size I like. However, a look in what passes for grocery stores here shows me large packages of legs, thighs, wings or breasts. Some whole chickens but they are more expensive than the rotisserie birds already cooked. Breasts come in "boneless/skinless" or "bone in". The freezer case is full of frozen chicken nuggets, chicken patties, chicken strips, chicken formed to look like dinosaurs (yeah, really, what's that all about?). And chicken wings are $2.99 a pound? Those used to be the last piece chosen, no one wanted them.

I spent my high school years working in a sandwich/chicken joint, so I can still break down a chicken in less than two minutes, yielding two legs, two thighs, two wings, two breast pieces and a back so cutting up my own chicken isn't a problem for me, but I doubt that either of my girls could cut one up and have it look like any part of a chicken. I did show them both how to buy the cheaper "bone in" breast pieces and remove the bone and skin and save themselves some money over the "boneless/skinless" pieces.

Dcarch, chicken leg quarters (leg and thigh pieces) are 39 cents a pound here too, but they come in 10 pound bags or larger. If you don't have a freezer, that's a lot of chicken.

Annie

Am I just naive, or what ... most meat counters (that want you to come back) should trim out your meats for you, and chop chickens for free ... but perhaps thats a midwest courtesy ...

No, that's normal. When the store has an actual manned butcher counter. Many places only have prepackaged meats. What's shocking to me is what Writersblock said about butcher shops not having a broad selection. I wonder what's keeping them in business?

Writersblock, I didn't realze how far it would be for you. Obviously not WF. If you like the quality at the butcher shop or Publix, you could talk to the butcher about a standing order. They can probably get whatever you want from the packers, but don't perceive a lot of demand.

Writersblock, my two favorite supermarkets back in Connecticut do have in-house butchers. I've never asked them to chop up chicken, but since they grind hamburger and do other butchery back there, I'm pretty certain they'd do chicken too. Probably true of all of them.

Whatever else, I sure didn't get diarrhea from chicken like I am prone to today. Sorry if that's tmi, but I feel the same about seafood!

bragu, that works if you actually have a grocery store. Here we have Aldi, Meijer and Walmart. None of them have actual butchers, just people who do things like break 100 pounds of bulk burger into smaller packages for sale (or, in the case of Walmart, take the older (brown) hamburger out of the cooler, wrap it up in nice fresh pink/red meat and put it back out. Certainly no one to cut up a chicken for you.

Artemis, Elery has two children who are grown adults, and neither one will eat anything with bones in it. I was just floored when I heard that. So, no ribs, no t-bone steaks, no chicken wings unless they are boneless. I'd never heard of such a thing...

I'm sure you are going to enjoy your own homegrown chicken, though. I like knowing how my animals/poultry are raised, how they were fed and cared for, how they were processed and handled. It's worth the extra work to me, plus I get the "goodies" like the feet for stock, double bonus for me!

Bumblebeez, I don't know what would cause that, unless it's the antibiotics in the raising of commercial chicken or the anti-microbial wash used to wash contaminated birds and the processing equipment in an attempt to kill pathogens. Chickens are required to go through a "withdrawal period" before slaughter, a time when they get no antibiotics, but I'm not convinced there isn't still a residue in the tissue. The cleaning solutions, of course, cannot be withdrawn.

Annie

butcher shops not having a broad selection. I wonder what's keeping them in business?

They do have a lot more prime beef and there are a lot of the .0001% wintering around here. But I was shocked to discover that they don't carry lamb, for instance, except at Easter, any more than Publix does. Occasionally they will have something like ostrich, though.

But I've noticed that the maids for the rich increasingly do most of their shopping at the butcher counter in Fresh Market, which hardly ever has anything but choice grade. They will, however, sell you a single strip of bacon if you want, which I much appreciate.

Annie, for all I know, this co-worker didn't eat ribs, either... I was just having a hard time imagining a hard core omnivore not ever eating ribs. (SO I gave her the benefit of the doubt).

I'm sure you are going to enjoy your own homegrown chicken, though. I like knowing how my animals/poultry are raised, how they were fed and cared for, how they were processed and handled. It's worth the extra work to me, plus I get the "goodies" like the feet for stock, double bonus for me!

I've been appreciating eating them. What I do really appreciate is that I do know that they were raised in a healthy manner, they got to free-range most days, and I know what they ate. It is also good that I now know how to put down a bird (say, among the layers) that may be terminally sick or injured, as humanely as possible.

I haven't eaten that much yet - enough to get more of a feel for how to best cook them. I've slow cooked some backs, and sous-vided a breast. I made chicken broth of neck and back for some poached "unlaid eggs" the one hen had.

Reserved is a bird for Coq au Vin, and another for Corfu Chicken. The roosters did end up a month older than I'd have desired (because for my first time, I wanted someone who KNOWS what they are doing to oversee me - stepping in quickly if things go south). And since the chickens were out and about a lot (not just in the tractor), cooking requires a bit more "low and slow".

If anyone still reading this far ends up putting up what turned out to be a laying hen, here's what I did regarding the unlaid eggs: https://goatsandgreens.wordpress.com/2018/10/12/soup-recipe-eyerlekh-unlaid-chicken-eggs/

@artemis_ma: You stated: "The notion of bones themselves just skeeved her out. Made her meat look too much like the previously living animal. (I suspect she has eaten ribs, but chicken for her was always boneless, as were all chops.)" My grown granddaughters are just like that, but they were just small girls (4 or 5), when they started not wanting chicken or chops with bones. So it was some internal thing with them. To this day the only meat/poultry/fish they will eat with a bone is prime rib.

@annie1992: I have never quite understood it, either. And they started this at such a young age. They lived with me, so it wasn't a taste they developed from meat/poultry/fish being cooked without bones. They would just peel or cut off the bone and put it aside. But now they are grown and purchase only boneless anything.

I notice plenty of options for whole chickens where I shop, and so I have a variety of options for whole chickens, which is what I usually buy. If I want turkey breast, I have the butcher at the market cut a double breast in half, as I only one one breast, and after I smoke/barbecue it, I cut it into thirds for freezing.

Trader Joe's has a good selection of whole chickens. If I am going to buy chicken parts, I will buy thighs, and they never had legs attached to them. They often come in large packages, and so I separate them and freeze 2/3 of them for later use.

When I barbecue a whole chicken, I remove the backbone, wing tips, and leg tips and make a stock with those parts (plus the neck, if included) while the chicken is cooking. I start the stock before I start cooking the chicken, however. I have found that hacking off the ends of the legs makes the legs easier to eat, and I never eat the wing tips anyway. I throw away the innards, such as liver, heart, etc. as I do not like the organ meat.

DH and I love to do a whole chicken on Sunday. They are smaller than I remember them as a kid when the family would do Sunday chicken dinner at Baubie's. She usually made stuffing inside the bird and there was enough room to fill it with stuffing for all of us. I know folks nowdays are not very kitchen oriented, but we rarely have much left over if we invite my dad. Maybe enough for 1-2 sandwiches during the week. Then we do soup with the carcass. Really quite easy peasy. We buy the organic birds most of the time. Way too expensive but I haven't been able to get to the farm markets around here where they might be somewhat less. When I lived out east, I used to live near several butcher shops specializing in locally sourced meats, but not in my current economically depressed home town. There are barely any stores other than a few big boxes. I'd rather buy direct from a farmer, organic or not, than pay the ripoff prices for those "natural/organic" brands at the big box stores.

Edited to change "SO" to "DH." Can't believe I get to type that after all these years! Although we have yet to roast a chicken as newlyweds!

I remember as a teen and the household cook that the "cut up" chickens still needed butchering. The breast was whole, often the back still had the tail on it, but the legs might be whole or cut.

When I was a child (when dinosaurs roamed the earth), all chickens were sold whole. They often came with a few feathers attached and a bit of blood. Their appearance would turn most today into vegetarians immediately! My mother usually cut up the chicken and fried it. I always begged for the friend liver - I still adore chicken livers. Sometimes, she would roast it whole and then use the leftovers for chicken pot pie with homemade buttermilk biscuits on top. Delicious!

I got married in 1966. I had no problem buying chicken breasts at my local Safeway, but they were not boned. Julia Child taught me how to bone them on her Sunday early evening TV show!

I had a million recipes for chicken breasts, as that was a staple at dinner parties (yes, we actually GAVE dinner parties - we went to at least one a week). Many included the use of heavy cream - we didn't worry about that in those days, yet none of us was overweight. They were all SO good!

In an Asian store, you can get true free range (not free range as per legal definition) chicken, old chicken (for making broth), whole chicken, part chicken, chicken bones, and silky chicken, ducks, goose, partridge, squab, quail----

dcarch

I have a friend who also won't eat meat on the bone. I always thought he was a special case, but I see he isn't!

Ah, dcarch, once again it depends on where you are. We used to have an Asian store like that, then some guy bought it out and now our only Asian store sells the same things Publix does, at slightly higher prices, along with a few kinds of noodles and other non-perishables that the big chains don't carry. So whether I like it or not, Thai Kitchen is the only coconut milk brand I can buy here, and forget about any fresh foods.