Modern Grocery Store Chicken

[kwselke]

One of my local grocers had boneless skinless chicken breasts on sale for 99 cents per pound today. I use boneless skinless breast regularly in my cooking, so I bought a bit over six pounds to vacuum seal and freeze.

Back in the latter part of the 20th century when I learned to cook chicken, the standard whole fryer chicken came in at about 3 1/2 pounds with skin and the liver, gizzard, and heart bagged in the cavity.

I ended up with 6.7 pounds of breast meat, from four birds... four pair, eight individual breasts boned out and still connected in pairs. I did a bit of trimming before vacuum sealing but one chicken's worth of breast meat weighed in well over two pounds, no skin, bone, fat, feathers, or organs.

I miss the old standard 3 1/2 pound fryer, but the meat on these new modern chickens is good too. I just cannot help but wonder about the total size of chickens that produce individual boneless skinless breast that weigh in over a pound apiece. Selective breeding, GMO, chickenasoarus?

I've boned out hundreds of birds over the years. Do not even think about pulling a knife on a guy that can bone out a whole chicken and keep the two breast pieces connected.

 

[arjay]

I’ve bought a few whole chickens in the last month and I don’t think I’ve bought one in 15 years.They are huge now!
Some kind of mutants!
Still tasty,though ;-)

 

[woodsltc]

Steroids

Don

 

[Rustyt1953]

Mom would cut up and fry every part of the chicken. Dad had dibs on the heart, liver and gizzard. I always considered the neck worth the effort.

Richard Pryor once said: "My toothless Aunt Maxine could suck a neckbone clean." "When she was done she would give it to the dog and the dog would look at her and say. 'what the hell am I supposed to do with this?'"

 

[Onomea]

I have become a fan of those supermarket rotisserie chickens. My wife and I can get a coupla meals out of one, and they sure make the meal prep simple. Use the bones for soup stock, too.

 

[Salty RI]

He was supposed to take it outside and bury it to grow another chicken.

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[kwselke]

I’ve bought a few whole chickens in the last month and I don’t think I’ve bought one in 15 years.They are huge now!
Some kind of mutants!
Still tasty,though ;-)

It takes a 24 ounce can of beer to make Beer Can Chicken these days. I'd rather drink the beer and eat grocery store roto chicken.

 

[Marshwheeling]

I have become a fan of those supermarket rotisserie chickens. My wife and I can get a coupla meals out of one, and they sure make the meal prep simple. Use the bones for soup stock, too.

The problem with these is that Conchita and I don’t eat white meat, which means that supper is pretty light, a leg and a thigh apiece. The upside is, there is a lot of meat to go into the soup pot with the carcass.

 

[llowry61]

Good thread. Chickens today are really big and the breast huge. Ironically, a friend of mine and I were lamenting about the fried chicken grandma use to make and how todays chickens just don't seem the same. Now I know that the skin is bad for you etc, but every now and then I have a hankering for that old fashioned fried chicken, german potato salad and fresh corn on the cob or green beans out of the garden. I am not sure what she did or if it was the chickens or if it is just me remembering something better that it was, but I sure wish I could replicate it. Maybe it was just the Crisco, I don't know.

Am I off base here or do others agree.

 

[MRB1]

We buy only whole chickens. After seeing the processes that result in chicken pieces, and the people that process them, it's whole or nothing. We raise chickens for the eggs, but would never eat one of our babies - the brown eggs are worth the trouble.

 

[kwselke]

We buy only whole chickens. After seeing the processes that result in chicken pieces, and the people that process them, it's whole or nothing. We raise chickens for the eggs, but would never eat one of our babies - the brown eggs are worth the trouble.

How big is a whole chicken that has two 18 ounce boneless skinless breasts? While buying mutant chicken breasts for 99 cents a pound I bought a dozen Grade AA Large eggs for 79 cents. How much do you pay for your chickens? Where do you get them and why are they better for chicken tacos?

 

[Rustyt1953]

The secret to my mom's fried chicken was that naughty four letter word: "lard".

 

[Salty RI]

What's a henweigh?

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[Golddollar]

What's a henweigh?

About 4 pounds <<<rimshot>>>

 

[Golddollar]

What's a Grecian urn?

About 50 dracmas a week <<<rimshot>>>

 

[spricks]

I'm a chicken fancier and raise a flock of layers and meat birds. The large meat birds in the supermarket are a breed called Cornish Cross and raised for meat only and bred to have a large breast. They only do two things basically. Eat and poop. They are lazy birds for sure, but tasty for sure. They are raised from chick to butcher in 6 weeks and can easily weigh 8lbs for the roosters....3 1/2 lb birds can be butchered at 4 weeks. They don't have the longevity gene and are raised to butcher before they have heart attacks from over eating....just sayin.

spricks

 

[kwselke]

About 4 pounds <<<rimshot>>>

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oShTJ90fC34[/ame]

 

[MRB1]

How big is a whole chicken that has two 18 ounce boneless skinless breasts? While buying mutant chicken breasts for 99 cents a pound I bought a dozen Grade AA Large eggs for 79 cents. How much do you pay for your chickens? Where do you get them and why are they better for chicken tacos?

I don't recall the breed of fryer that produces the huge breasts, but they are raised in a caged / controlled environment using feed that I can't get at the feed store. As for eggs, store bought eggs are MUCH MUCH cheaper than what my prima donnas lay. A WAG would be about $ 3.00 + per dozen. Replacement day old chicks run about $3 - $4 each, the feed is very high - like dog food- and you don't see your first eggs until they're at least seven months old. Then you get to feed the bobcats, coyotes, feral cats, coons, hawks, and owls. Still, those brown eggs are well worth the time, trouble and expense - by a large margin.

 

[Onomea]

The problem with these is that Conchita and I don’t eat white meat, which means that supper is pretty light, a leg and a thigh apiece. The upside is, there is a lot of meat to go into the soup pot with the carcass.

I understand that. We prefer thighs, and buy those when buying chicken pieces. Like the taste better, and more forgiving to cook, too, than breasts. Growing up, though, breasts were always thought to be the best part of a chicken and consequently reserved for adults. (I had to content myself with gnawing on a drumstick.)

I was reading somewhere that chickens used to be a bit of a luxury, and pork was the low priced meat. Hence FDR’s “a chicken in every pot” as a code phrase for prosperity. I think somewhere around WWII or shortly thereafter chicken mass production took off and prices fell accordingly.

Have not noticed a taste difference in store bought eggs between brown and white.

 

[kwselke]

I don't recall the breed of fryer that produces the huge breasts, but they are raised in a caged / controlled environment using feed that I can't get at the feed store. As for eggs, store bought eggs are MUCH MUCH cheaper than what my prima donnas lay. A WAG would be about $ 3.00 + per dozen. Replacement day old chicks run about $3 - $4 each, the feed is very high - like dog food- and you don't see your first eggs until they're at least seven months old. Then you get to feed the bobcats, coyotes, feral cats, coons, hawks, and owls. Still, those brown eggs are well worth the time, trouble and expense - by a large margin.

Live long and prosper.