Chicken: Can a $15/Pound Chicken Really Be *That* Much Better Than The Inexpensive Stuff?

[Bart]

I have to admit that the focus on prices and pricing/value independent of commentary on a restaurant's actual food in seemingly every thread lately has derailed discussions for me and limited my participation lately (it's beyond tiresome).

You must be one of those multimillionaires on this site that Don was talking about.

Down here in the real world, some of us have to contend with limited budgets. The price and value of the meal weigh into whether I'll go in the first place and also my feelings about it afterword. I can't help but feeling a little taken by my Momofuku meal where the cheapest bottle of wine was 60 bucks, and when I think about that meal, that's the first thing I think of. Not the food, but the price of the wine. I felt the exact opposite about my meal at Kinship. The bottles in the $40-50 range were a welcome change and didn't feel like a shake down. Quite the opposite. The first thing I think about the Kinship meal was the food, but a close second is how the wine list was not just a way to pad the bill.

I often mention prices in my write ups because: 1) Don does it and 2) I find it helpful in other reviews, and a good point of reference on where to spend my limited time and money.

YMMV 

[Josh]

TedE, check out Mom's Organic Market...I remember seeing some Ayrshire Farms stuff there before...dunno if they sell their chickens there or not.

[Barbara]

Great insight, Julien, a truly wonderful post.  But ...

How does this help somebody living in DC looking to make better poultry choices on a budget?  What local options are better than Whole Foods?  This ain't Paris.  i know that Harvey's Market stocks D'Artagnan Green Circle birds; are they any good?  What else doesn't require a trip across town or out to a farm to pick up a grocery staple?

I confess that unless there is a relatively convenient way to beat readily available CAFO product then it is a hard sell.  Our family would be willing to pay a premium for better quality (not a $10/lb premium, but something significantly more than $2/lb), and I would learn to stop being so damn lazy and start breaking down whole chickens instead of buying parts.  However, mail order artisanal birds from Long Island isn't an option.

This post has prompted me to look closer at some local meat CSAs, or CSAs that provide a meat option.  That has it's own set of challenges (we stopped our CSA share after kid #2, it was too much of a hassle), and aside from the free range aspect I think you're probably just getting premium Cornish Cross anyway.  What else is out there?

I'll just repeat that I bought a "farmers market" bird from Smucker Farms and paid approximately $4/lb for it. That 5 lb. bird was plenty for the three of us and there were leftovers for the next day. I generally wind up paying $7+/lb for non-CAFO meat when I cook for guests. Even at that price, it's still cheaper to cook for everybody than take them to a restaurant.

[TedE]

I'll just repeat that I bought a "farmers market" bird from Smucker Farms and paid approximately $4/lb for it. That 5 lb. bird was plenty for the three of us and there were leftovers for the next day. I generally wind up paying $7+/lb for non-CAFO meat when I cook for guests. Even at that price, it's still cheaper to cook for everybody than take them to a restaurant.

That's a good one that I always overlook (only because the location is simply not convenient for us for regular shopping).  Chicken is a common meal ingredient at our house, so this isn't a "Well, it's cheaper than a restaurant!" thing, it's how we eat at home every day.  $4/pound is closer to making it a viable alternative to our normal Costco frozen "organic" mega-packs that stock the freezer.

TedE, check out Mom's Organic Market...I remember seeing some Ayrshire Farms stuff there before...dunno if they sell their chickens there or not.

Thanks, I'll check them out, there is one not too far from us that I never really go to because I don't find much else about the place to be worth the cost (produce is meh).

I just now picked up a (tiny!) Green Circle chicken from Harvey's for dinner tonight.  We'll see what the family verdict is.

[Simul Parikh]

Totally agree - Julien, thanks for such an incredible post - I have to admit that the focus on prices and pricing/value independent of commentary on a restaurant's actual food in seemingly every thread lately has derailed discussions for me and limited my participation lately (it's beyond tiresome). In this thread between Julien and JohnB I can say I have learned something. Thanks!

Lucky you!!

[Josh]

You must be one of those multimillionaires on this site that Don was talking about.

Down here in the real world, some of us have to contend with limited budgets. The price and value of the meal weigh into whether I'll go in the first place and also my feelings about it afterword. I can't help but feeling a little taken by my Momofuku meal where the cheapest bottle of wine was 60 bucks, and when I think about that meal, that's the first thing I think of. Not the food, but the price of the wine. I felt the exact opposite about my meal at Kinship. The bottles in the $40-50 range were a welcome change and didn't feel like a shake down. Quite the opposite. The first thing I think about the Kinship meal was the food, but a close second is how the wine list was not just a way to pad the bill.

I often mention prices in my write ups because: 1) Don does it and 2) I find it helpful in other reviews, and a good point of reference on where to spend my limited time and money.

YMMV 

I think everyone would agree that a discussion of value is an integral part of discussing one's experience at a restaurant.  The only issue I (and apparently Keith too) have is when a discussion begins centering solely on prices and perceived value before anyone has even eaten at a place.  After you dined at Kinship, I thought your review was fantastic, and really helpful (and led to me making my own reservation).  Discussing the roast chicken beforehand, not so much.

[Bart]

I guess I wasn't clear in my earlier posts.

I wasn't specifically taking about the price of the chicken at Kinship* (although that's how this thread started). I was (trying to) respond to PF's post about mass produced supermarket chickens "dumbing down" American palates or sensibilities vs. "artisanal" chickens. The question I was trying to pose was, would anyone be able to detect the difference in two different birds prepared the same way, in the same setting with all other external factors removed.

The best answer I got was the person who talked about the different mouth feel of the meat of the two different birds. I totally get that. My hang up was with PF's statement, not the Kinship chicken price. Sorry if that didn't come across that way.

*After hearing the way the Kinship chicken was prepared with a stuffing solution injected between the skin and the meat we were VERY tempted to order it, but that would have denied us so many other dishes that we didn't. We briefly considered ordering it at the end to take home like a precooked Safeway special(!), but sanity ruled the day and we decided to come back with more people another day and get it in the restaurant.

[Keithstg]

I think everyone would agree that a discussion of value is an integral part of discussing one's experience at a restaurant.  The only issue I (and apparently Keith too) have is when a discussion begins centering solely on prices and perceived value before anyone has even eaten at a place.  After you dined at Kinship, I thought your review was fantastic, and really helpful (and led to me making my own reservation).  Discussing the roast chicken beforehand, not so much.

 

Exactly. Thanks Josh. Apparently I wasn't as clear as I would have liked in my prior post. I absolutely loved Bart's review of Kinship, for what it's worth (the snarky reply, not so much). For the sake of clarity, I will add that what I am reacting to and find enervating seems to be a fairly recent phenomenon, at least as I can remember from my 10 + years of reading this site daily. Pricing, economics, salaries etc. seem to have taken over threads, diverting discussion from the topic at hand - namely the food being served in each restaurant - and yes, that restaurant's value proposition.

In an effort to be as clear as possible about what I mean - please see below - these comments are all in ONE restaurant thread. Of course, by posting the below I am derailing the discussion, so Don, please feel free to move wherever. or start another thread entirely. Sorry I haven't mastered the multi quote function. Again, each comment below was posted in a thread about ONE restaurant.

7.50 for a sardine. Wow. We are in the gilded age. How do non rich people eat out these days at nicer places?

I know FOH are making pharmacist money, and sometimes pediatrician money, and sometimes even medical specialist money...

If we live in a world that the people serving the food should make that sort of money, but the people making it are making $12-15/hr, maybe sometimes more, but nowhere near $75-150k annually, that anyone ... that we should be okay with that? His pride of saying that ... I don't even know what to make of it. Teachers don't make that per annum. My nurses don't make that (don't blame me, I'm a private practice doc, a hospital conglomerate pays them).

but money is not an issue to me.Does anyone have a good justification that Green Pig Bistro and many other places charge $25 for a fried chicken dinner other than it can? Sometimes I go on dates and I love recommending DR to people... But some people read it and are like "you guys are so rich, this doesn't make sense to us". I'm not just saying that, this is what people think. understanding, that I can charge $250k for a life saving lung cancer treatment, and I don't...

 

And Finally...

This is a valuable conversation, but"¦Just trying to bring the conversation back to THIS restaurant.

[DonRocks]

In an effort to be as clear as possible about what I mean - please see below - these comments are all in ONE restaurant thread. Of course, by posting the below I am derailing the discussion, so Don, please feel free to move wherever. or start another thread entirely. Sorry I haven't mastered the multi quote function. Again, each comment below was posted in a thread about ONE restaurant.

[Bart]

Just to be clear, I "liked" Keith's post above not because he said nice things about my Kinship review, but because he called me out on my snarky reply to his post!

[Simul Parikh]

Yeah, that was just me! Everyone isn't derailing the discussion

Point taken.. Honestly, though, the chicken posting we got above was one of the best things I've read, so if it took derailing to get to that, I found it to be worth it!

[sandynva]

i can't find it, but i would've sworn that in the past year there was an article in one of the locations where they asked a chef to prepare a meal with the high end ingredients he normally used and then with agreements from a local supermarket. does anyone remember this? i remember being a bit dissapointed by it because he ended up using different techniques to prepare the cheaper ingredients, so though (if i remember correctly) both meals ended up rated equally by the tasters it wasn't an apples-to-apples comparison. i would love to see the results of a similar experiment where the ingredients were prepared identically. 

[Poivrot Farci]

How does this help somebody living in DC looking to make better poultry choices on a budget?  What local options are better than Whole Foods?  This ain't Paris.  i know that Harvey's Market stocks D'Artagnan Green Circle birds; are they any good?  What else doesn't require a trip across town or out to a farm to pick up a grocery staple?

Eat Wild has a list of farmers and which ones come to the metro area or farmer's markets.  It ends up being a fair amount of work for a chicken, but it will help you look down on your neighbors and their bargain basement broilers. If enough people get organized and select a pick-up venue (market) they/you can probably buy enough birds (3-4 each, freeze a few)  where the farmer can cut a deal, get rid of everything he has slaughtered for the week and still make more than enough gas money.

Green Circle birds are a bit small, on the cusp of 3lbs, about $4.50/lb but I have not tried them.  D'Artagnan may have been a beacon of quality a long time ago, but I feel that at times they are peddling a Sam Adams version of "quality" which is just a step up from Bud Light commodity with their label slapped on (their Muscovy ducks and guinea hens coincidentally come from the same part of California that cheaper Grimaud poultry does) and they take advantage of unregulated food term/labels.  I've gotten the same mushrooms from other distributors for less, kind of like how Harris Teeter sells 3 Sunkist blood oranges for $2 while Whole Foods sells 2 of the same for $3. Their lamb options for example are befuddling.  Either you get grass-fed pastured all the way from Australia (Dorset/Suffolk/Merino cross) or pastured Rambouillet/Suffolk cross-breed sheep from Colorado that are finished on grain (according to their website). Rambouillet/Suffolk might as well be elk since they grow to an enormous size in their first year during which they can still be sold as lamb rather than mutton after 1 year of age.  It is unfortunate that the vanguard of the farm-to-table movement which "continues to anticipate the demands of the palates of American chefs and consumers" hasn't picked up on their "local" sensibilities and cannot find any lamb east of the Mississippi.

D'Artagnan prides itself as being a "pioneer in a movement that is chock full of buzzwords. Farm-to-table, artisanal, free-range, grass-fed; all of these are in the DNA of the company, because to Ariane that is just the way things should be done. She built D'Artagnan on the idea that the care taken on the farm can be tasted on the plate. In other words (her own), "A happy chicken is a tasty chicken.""

Sounds preppy, but those pioneers pop down their starched blue collars by packaging their retail organic chicken breasts and thighs in chock-full of average Joe-6-pack Styrofoam (which they acknowledge in their FAQ, but it is "efficient and lightweight").  As for buzzwords, their Green Circle is on a bit of a Greenwashing cycle.  "Every chicken that bears the name is raised free-range on a diet of actual vegetables, is certified-humane and air-chilled. Now that is chicken as it should be." Except that chickens are actual carnivores and have been since the time of dinosaurs

To qualify for the Certified Humane label that Green Circle carries, the chickens must have all of 2 sq/ft per bird and, weather permitting, be able to chicken strut all cocksure through a 1.5' x 3' wide door and spend at least 6hrs a day in the yard to work out and play cards for cigarettes.  In that aspect, the Green Circle is better than the hot-house most birds are doomed to suffer in.  The Certified Humane website has plenty of PDF charts and whatnot concerning poultry, pigs and ruminants and is transparent regarding their standards.

Ayrshire chicken are Certified Humane and at $6.50/lb a 3.5lb bird will cost you 2 decent drinks at a bar with tax & tip. I like them

The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service requires that the regular ol' "Free Range" poultry need to have access to the outdoors in order to carry that distinction, which means there is a little door or something, but the birds are usually too terrified to go outside, may not even fit their whole bodies through or even know it is there.  These birds often have their beaks cut to keep them from pecking at each other on account of the density and their deprived insect craving.

United Poultry Concerns has a more cynical view of what "free range" means, with some rather awful testimonials, if they are true.

 

So D'Artagnan's organic chickens are USDA free range and eat organic bird food (and the breasts/legs are sold in Stryofoam, the herpes of man-made trash)  while their Green Circle cohorts get to go outside but eat ACTUAL vegetables, like commodity broccoli, corn on the cob or cabbage that isn't up to snuff for human consumption.  It would appear that the permutation of both organic and Certified Humane is not in the cards, maybe because of the cost and limited number to fit their enormous needs.  That's too bad, but expected for a company that had about $95 million in sales last year. D'artagnan claims that their birds are raised on Mennonite and Amish farms which is a common theme in the Mid-Atlantic and that doesn't count the Easter Shore farms that help saturate the Chesapeake Bay watershed with lots of chicken shit. Their Rohan ducks come from a Cochecton Farm in NY where they raise 250,000 a year, slaughtering about 4,800 a week on average.  With those numbers, they are also in the business of waste management.

Aside from the Certified Humane standards, which is better than the casual fluff on most packaging:

-"All Natural" has absolutely no standards or legal definition in US and with the exception of artificial thing like nylon, polyester and glass, virtually anything can qualify as natural and it passes the animal's sniff test.

-"Cage Free" There is no legal standard or definition and it is a more charming way of describing high density confinement, like "free roaming".  They are not in cages, but don't have much room to roam and rarely if ever are allowed outside.  And their beaks are probably cut which is just as horrible as it sounds.

"Free Range".  There is no legal definition for "free range".  As it relates to eggs "Producers must demonstrate to the Agency that the poultry has been allowed access to the outside" but there is no government oversight or standard for how long they must be outdoors, nor the size of the opening.

If it suits your diet and conscience, eat bird seed or cardboard and save yourself the headache.

[Simul Parikh]

PF

You're clearly much more educated and understanding about high end meats and poultry than most, and I completely respect that. Maybe you can tell the difference- I'm not sure if I can, yet, I would like to be able to be to.

Do you think most people can tell the difference? Do you think that dishes like curries that are as heavily spiced let these special birds spread their wings of taste? I wonder about that because from my experience when I go to foreign countries - such as India - I know their birds are of poorer of quality - that the cuisine doesn't seem to suffer. The really good cuts and birds you talk about - possibly (maybe obviously) the roasted versions are much better. But when they are curried or fried, does the quality vanish? I've never had a better Indian chicken curry than I have had in India, but the chicken is almost always of less quality.

To avoid the monetary commentary, I want to focus on the quality ... Do you (or others) know about the quality of food being so much better when the meat or poultry is better quality? And how do we know places actually use good quality meat and foods? With fig and olive being found to use Hellmans, not actual aioli, I'm starting to not trust anyone. How we do know anyone is actually using high end products, except by their price? Rasika may be the best Indian restaurants in the country, but how do we know their meat and poultry is of high quality? If it is not, is the food poorer because of it? Or, because in the native country they use poorer quality meat and poultry, the authenticity of it is enhanced if they use poorer quality meat and poultry, and is that the desirable ingredient?

S

[Simul Parikh]

And .... Silence ...

My assumption is that many ethnic places basically use "bird seed and cardboard", and thus would be presumed by some as not as good as cuisines that use $6 a pound bird...

[DonRocks]

And .... Silence ...

My assumption is that many ethnic places basically use "bird seed and cardboard", and thus would be presumed by some as not as good as cuisines that use $6 a pound bird...

I'll be happy to take a stab, but I'm not sure what your question is! Your post sort-of rambled and brainstormed while at the same time threw in some question marks (almost like stream-of-conscious writing) - and there's nothing wrong with that, but it would be a lot easier to respond if you can come up with a succinct question (or questions). My gut feeling is that your questions are going to be somewhat general, and won't necessarily require someone of Poivrot Farci's expertise to issue a meaningful reply.

[sandynva]

PF

You're clearly much more educated and understanding about high end meats and poultry than most, and I completely respect that. Maybe you can tell the difference- I'm not sure if I can, yet, I would like to be able to be to.

Do you think most people can tell the difference? Do you think that dishes like curries that are as heavily spiced let these special birds spread their wings of taste? I wonder about that because from my experience when I go to foreign countries - such as India - I know their birds are of poorer of quality - that the cuisine doesn't seem to suffer. The really good cuts and birds you talk about - possibly (maybe obviously) the roasted versions are much better. But when they are curried or fried, does the quality vanish? I've never had a better Indian chicken curry than I have had in India, but the chicken is almost always of less quality.

To avoid the monetary commentary, I want to focus on the quality ... Do you (or others) know about the quality of food being so much better when the meat or poultry is better quality? And how do we know places actually use good quality meat and foods? With fig and olive being found to use Hellmans, not actual aioli, I'm starting to not trust anyone. How we do know anyone is actually using high end products, except by their price? Rasika may be the best Indian restaurants in the country, but how do we know their meat and poultry is of high quality? If it is not, is the food poorer because of it? Or, because in the native country they use poorer quality meat and poultry, the authenticity of it is enhanced if they use poorer quality meat and poultry, and is that the desirable ingredient?

S

 i don't know if this answers your q, but at the very least, i doubt the quality, to the extent it exists, vanishes, so much as it gets hidden. I'm definitely not one of those who assumes free range/local/organic tastes better but to the extent it does, doesn't whether or not the food suffers depend on the type of dish? i don't eat meat, but i'd imagine that in a plain roast chicken you might be able to taste some differences, but in say, a tikka masala, you couldn't, because really, who can taste anything underneath the sauce? i add tofu rather than paneer to my tikka masala sauce because i really don't think you can tell what's under there, much less differences in quality, and even to the extent you can, i want the sauce to shine, not what's under it. also, is it possible that whether or not there's a noticeable difference in quality varies based on type of bird and meat? with vegetabes at least it does. for example, local/fresh picked tomatoes taste much, much better to me than the stuff from the market, but many other things, like kale and fennel, don't really. so maybe in certain animals it makes a big difference and others it doesnt.

But i do think you ask an important question--leaving aside all ethical issues and looking at it clearly from the point of deliciousness- what variants (i.e. local, organic, heirloom, etc) actually make a difference? which ones could you tell in a blind taste test?

and, fwiw, though you posed multiple questions, i understood what you were asking.

[Poivrot Farci]

You had me at "quality" then lost me on "good", so I'll defer to Inigo Montoya and maybe Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin.
 
It depends on what "quality" and the indifferent one-armed hug of hot air that "good" conjures. Putting Guy's famous Donkey sauce, any of many curries or truffled nönsense on a chicken isn't going to change the quality of the bird.  Quality is different than taste and judging by America's collective cholesterol and waistband, what tastes good might not be the gold standard of overall excellence.  I don't think anyone can give a definitive, absolute, guaranteed, clinical answer as to whether chickens (not cloned ones) of a certain provenance are always, without fail, better quality than others or if that quality can change by squeezing curried ketchup on it. I'll give it a shot.
 
1. Is a fancy, pampered western chicken invariably better quality than an Indian chicken that has been taking bird baths in the Ganges?  
Probably.
2. Is a fancy, pampered western chicken invariably better quality than that Indian chicken after it has been given a spice treatment? 
Same as above.
2a. Does the fancy one taste better than tikka cinderella?
That's apples to apple sauce comparison.  The flavor might depend on the caliber of the spices and who is making it.  There is delicious, awful and septic international food depending on your tolerance for spice/heat/flavors, who makes it and where/if they washed their hands.   If there is a polluting child labor scourge in the lucknow fennel and dhania coriander industry, then I'll re-evaluate my spice rack with more conscionable reasonings behind the seasonings.
 
Again, chicken should elicit more than just isolated, singular taste.  There are other variables.  It is like those achingly dumb best restaurant lists which try to separate the wheat from the chaff using a weenie thumbs up/down Academy Awards method (the Gong Show does better merit calculus) which doesn't factor anything remotely tangible such how much they pay or exploit their staff, do they offer benefits, paid vacation, recycle, compost, donate to charity, etc"¦the kind of measurable under-the-hood-mechanics that actually make a restaurant function; sort of how one rates a car on fuel consumption and reliability in addition to how much the V8's purr makes yours and everyone else's genitals tingle. But most people have only so many shits to give, -whoever cooks the food is decidedly not one of them- and they rarely look beyond the mismatched estate-sale forks because it is *only* about the taste and food just comes out from behind a door shaped curtain, like pre-cut plastic-wrapped meat at the supermarket show and it's just easier that way. 
 
In Steak R-evolution, heavyweight Parisian meat-wad Yves-Marie Le Bourdonnec sweats and slobbers so much over the porterhouse served at Peter Luger's steakhouse you'd think it was ortolan.  He lauds their Angus' marbling and its tender juiciness, the payoff of a young animal's gluttonous diet (less collagen is best suited for Luger's crude and fashionably unskilled 800F grill) and goes globetrotting, visiting farmers who raise different breeds of blue-ribbon cattle with varying degrees of hayseed folklore,  farmhand massages  and premium husbandry.  The liability of the Peter Luger's CAFO meat slabs however is the amount of commodity feed that needs to be purchased from so far away to fatten the things up and they make absolutely no mention of how (horribly) they are raised.  The camera crew never went to go film those animals.  Exceptional subjective taste, but the quality is not even debatable.  So you are left with one of those 5 room/feedlot puzzles: how to raise animals on pasture to market weight in less than 2 years without having to buy too much environmentally nefarious feed or compromise the humanity of which they are raised "“provided those variables matter to you in the equation.  If not, then why care? Eat up and enjoy because in 40 years you'll be eating chickens out of a test-tube.

With fig and olive being found to use Hellmans, not actual aioli, I'm starting to not trust anyone. How we do know anyone is actually using high end products, except by their price? Rasika may be the best Indian restaurants in the country, but how do we know their meat and poultry is of high quality?

 
What is so scandalous about using Hellman's? Americans eat more Hellman's than whatever constitutes salsa and the saintly Heinz's ketchup annually.  Sure southerner contend Duke's taste better, but as far as a pasteurized product goes, it is consistent and very safe until someone mucks it up with truffle lube or sticks their fingers in it.  If the CDC and consumers expects a national chain to make their own mayonnaise from whole eggs then they might want to print out some more egg safety brochures and stock up on Ipecac.  If you are curious as to the quality of the chicken a restaurant uses, ask them:  "what kind of chicken do you use?" Tell them you are and intern at the City Paper. They should be delighted by your curiosity would be even more delighted to brag about the quality of their ingredients.  

[DonRocks]

You had me at "quality" then lost me on "good", so I'll defer to Inigo Montoya and maybe Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin.

It depends on what "quality" and the indifferent one-armed hug of hot air that "good" conjures. Putting Guy's famous Donkey sauce, any of many curries or truffled nönsense* on a chicken isn't going to change the quality of the bird.  Quality is different than taste and judging by America's collective cholesterol and waistband, what tastes good might not be the gold standard of overall excellence. 

Oh my God.

10 1/2 years.

Ten-and-a-half damned years and somebody *finally* gets it.

[lion]

I didn't chime in this conversation except to say that texture was an important quality. Also after Poivrot Farci's brilliant photo essay contribution on various quality of birds there wasn't much more to add. However since the example for curry chicken has been used in regards to good and quality tastes, I will throw my 0.2 in the ring.

Some of the best curry chicken I've ever had was on my grandparents farms in India. The chickens were slaughtered in the morning and prepared for dinner that night. In terms of quality it would rival high quality birds from other parts of the world. Actually the best daal, lentils, I've ever had by far was there as well. I think it is the water and probably equivalent to how New Yorkers feel in regards to bagels, or Parisians in regards to baguettes.  In this regard, I do think terroir plays an important role which is hard to duplicate outside those areas.

Now in terms of quality of chicken in curries. Yes, quality does make a difference but to make high quality chicken taste at its best, it must be made with a cook who is very good. Like any meat preparation, over cooking can result in dryness, and lack of tenderness, which is more forgiven in a lower quality meat than higher quality one. I suppose one could argue the full potential of the high quality bird is not met and the lower quality bird has less variance in terms of how it is prepared. On the other hand, undercooking can result in the meat being separate from the sauce or curries in this case and equally not appealing. The experience of the cook in preparation is of the upmost importance in this area.

Even using all organic ingredients for the onions, tomatoes, oil, and grinding up all the spices from high quality sources requires a lot of experimentation to achieve a unified curry instead of various elements overpowering the others and ending up was a result where those individual ingredients can be tasted uniquely. That is simply not a curry or masala.

The more interesting question that arises from this conversation is how places like Rasika, while good for what the restaurant represents, falls outside their terroir and thus outside a certain kind of quality.

[Simul Parikh]

Thank you for your great responses to my rambly question!

I learn a lot from this board every day...

[johnb]

Here is something that may be pertinent to this thread, or not.  Take it FWIW.  click

[Choirgirl21]

You had me at "quality" then lost me on "good", so I'll defer to Inigo Montoya and maybe Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin.

It depends on what "quality" and the indifferent one-armed hug of hot air that "good" conjures. Putting Guy's famous Donkey sauce, any of many curries or truffled nönsense on a chicken isn't going to change the quality of the bird. Quality is different than taste and judging by America's collective cholesterol and waistband, what tastes good might not be the gold standard of overall excellence. I don't think anyone can give a definitive, absolute, guaranteed, clinical answer as to whether chickens (not cloned ones) of a certain provenance are always, without fail, better quality than others or if that quality can change by squeezing curried ketchup on it. I'll give it a shot.

1. Is a fancy, pampered western chicken invariably better quality than an Indian chicken that has been taking bird baths in the Ganges?

Probably.

2. Is a fancy, pampered western chicken invariably better quality than that Indian chicken after it has been given a spice treatment?

Same as above.

2a. Does the fancy one taste better than tikka cinderella?

That's apples to apple sauce comparison. The flavor might depend on the caliber of the spices and who is making it. There is delicious, awful and septic international food depending on your tolerance for spice/heat/flavors, who makes it and where/if they washed their hands. If there is a polluting child labor scourge in the lucknow fennel and dhania coriander industry, then I'll re-evaluate my spice rack with more conscionable reasonings behind the seasonings.

Again, chicken should elicit more than just isolated, singular taste. There are other variables. It is like those achingly dumb best restaurant lists which try to separate the wheat from the chaff using a weenie thumbs up/down Academy Awards method (the Gong Show does better merit calculus) which doesn't factor anything remotely tangible such how much they pay or exploit their staff, do they offer benefits, paid vacation, recycle, compost, donate to charity, etc"¦the kind of measurable under-the-hood-mechanics that actually make a restaurant function; sort of how one rates a car on fuel consumption and reliability in addition to how much the V8's purr makes yours and everyone else's genitals tingle. But most people have only so many shits to give, -whoever cooks the food is decidedly not one of them- and they rarely look beyond the mismatched estate-sale forks because it is *only* about the taste and food just comes out from behind a door shaped curtain, like pre-cut plastic-wrapped meat at the supermarket show and it's just easier that way.

In Steak R-evolution, heavyweight Parisian meat-wad Yves-Marie Le Bourdonnec sweats and slobbers so much over the porterhouse served at Peter Luger's steakhouse you'd think it was ortolan. He lauds their Angus' marbling and its tender juiciness, the payoff of a young animal's gluttonous diet (less collagen is best suited for Luger's crude and fashionably unskilled 800F grill) and goes globetrotting, visiting farmers who raise different breeds of blue-ribbon cattle with varying degrees of hayseed folklore, farmhand massages and premium husbandry. The liability of the Peter Luger's CAFO meat slabs however is the amount of commodity feed that needs to be purchased from so far away to fatten the things up and they make absolutely no mention of how (horribly) they are raised. The camera crew never went to go film those animals. Exceptional subjective taste, but the quality is not even debatable. So you are left with one of those 5 room/feedlot puzzles: how to raise animals on pasture to market weight in less than 2 years without having to buy too much environmentally nefarious feed or compromise the humanity of which they are raised "“provided those variables matter to you in the equation. If not, then why care? Eat up and enjoy because in 40 years you'll be eating chickens out of a test-tube.

What is so scandalous about using Hellman's? Americans eat more Hellman's than whatever constitutes salsa and the saintly Heinz's ketchup annually. Sure southerner contend Duke's taste better, but as far as a pasteurized product goes, it is consistent and very safe until someone mucks it up with truffle lube or sticks their fingers in it. If the CDC and consumers expects a national chain to make their own mayonnaise from whole eggs then they might want to print out some more egg safety brochures and stock up on Ipecac. If you are curious as to the quality of the chicken a restaurant uses, ask them: "what kind of chicken do you use?" Tell them you are and intern at the City Paper. They should be delighted by your curiosity would be even more delighted to brag about the quality of their ingredients.

This post is fantastic. And thank you for saving me the point about Hellman's.

[Jenna Gardiner]

On 12/28/2015 at 6:38 PM, Bart said:

 

Could you tell the difference between a $4 chicken, an $8/lb chicken and a $15/lb chicken?  

Could I tell the difference?

Could the average Joe, who's never even heard of Poulet Rouge, Don Rockwell, Eric Ziebold, Chowhound or biodynamic, organic, free range, etc tell the difference?

 

I'm not trying to be jerky, I really don't know.  

 

I *think* it's been proven that there's no difference in taste between the eggs of backyard, free range chickens and an Eastern Shore, bionic but caged-for-life bird's eggs.  Does the same go for the meat?

 

I totally get the difference from a philosophical point of view, but I wonder if I can taste the difference. And I can see why people (normal, everyday people just struggling to get by) are perfectly happy with what they find in the supermarket vs.the home grown chicken/pork/beef etc,at 2X, 3X, 4X the price.

Recently I had the pleasure of tasting a locally raised, pastured RIR cross broiler, $4/lb,  and the difference in taste from the various supermarket brand birds was marked. The eggs from the same pastured flock also had a much richer flavor than that of eggs from hens raised in cages or free range hens, both of which are fed primarily on grains. Plants and bugs are what pastured chickens feast upon. Free range does not necessarily mean the same as pastured, it means they are not kept in cages, but they may live the entirety of their short lives in a barn, never seeing the sun or eating fresh food. Pastured birds spend most of their time outside, coming inside to roost at night.

 

It is well-known that a creature's diet affects the taste of its flesh. Seagulls are fine, fat specimens that would easily make a meal, but no one wants to eat something that tastes like rotting fish and garbage. At the other end of the spectrum, there is a game bird which is particularly prized at the time of year when it feeds upon seasonal berries because of the flavor they impart to the meat. Sadly, that time of year is nowhere near the hunting season for them. Cured hams are an excellent example of how feed makes a difference in taste and price: this Wiki on the different types of jamon iberico should clear up any questions one might have as to why the prices range from $25 to $100/lb. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamón_ibérico#Types_and_characteristics

I have yet to encounter a fresh chicken retailing for anywhere near $8/lb, let alone $15, but I would certainly be interested in trying a domestic poulet de Bresse raised in the traditional manner, if anyone knows of a retailer.