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

[silentbob]

I have my doubts that I would feel the same about a $56 whole roasted chicken, unless it got up and entertained us upon being served...  After all, it is just chicken.

I generally agree with the sentiment, but for what it's worth the roast chicken with bread salad at Zuni Cafe is $54 and TOTALLY worth it.

The menu here looks undoubtedly impressive, though my inclination would be to try Metier first as well.

[Poivrot Farci]

I have my doubts that I would feel the same about a $56 whole roasted chicken, unless it got up and entertained us upon being served... After all, it is just chicken.

Any chicken worth a damn that isn't "just" zombie Cornish Cross birds raised on concrete that haven't seen the light of day cost more. A couple raises organic pastured Poulet Rouge in NY state that sells for $8/lb retail and they sell 125 a week. Some birds in France cost up to $15/lb and beyond. $56 for a 3-4lb chicken split between 4 people seems reasonable, even a bargain if prepared and served with care.

It is unfortunate that good quality food has been made to seem unapproachable and dinner table benchmarks devalued by very mediocre commodity supermarket sustenance that bears little resemblence to foodstuffs eaten just 50 years ago.

[RWBooneJr]

I have my doubts that I would feel the same about a $56 whole roasted chicken, unless it got up and entertained us upon being served...  After all, it is just chicken.

You can usually tell everything you need to know about a restaurant by ordering the chicken.

[Jonathan]

It is unfortunate that good quality food has been made to seem unapproachable and dinner table benchmarks devalued by very mediocre commodity supermarket sustenance that bears little resemblence to foodstuffs eaten just 50 years ago.

Amen, brother, amen.

[Bart]

Any chicken worth a damn that isn't "just" zombie Cornish Cross birds raised on concrete that haven't seen the light of day cost more. A couple raises organic pastured Poulet Rouge in NY state that sells for $8/lb retail and they sell 125 a week. Some birds in France cost up to $15/lb and beyond. $56 for a 3-4lb chicken split between 4 people seems reasonable, even a bargain if prepared and served with care.

It is unfortunate that good quality food has been made to seem unapproachable and dinner table benchmarks devalued by very mediocre commodity supermarket sustenance that bears little resemblence to foodstuffs eaten just 50 years ago.

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.

[Josh]

This is a tiresome discussion. Eat there or don't eat there. If you do, report on how your experience was and whether you felt you got what you paid for.

[Simul Parikh]

Fair point, JoshNE, but when a place calls itself "approachable" with those prices, some people may want to debate that. You're right, though, without tasting it, not a fair fight. I have a hard time believing a $56 roast chicken will be "worth it", but it may be! I just might never give it a chance, since I'm sort of cheap and would need loads of people saying it was amazeballs before I'd try it...

[Josh]

Dang!  If that's what their casual neighborhoody menu looks like, I'm scared to see what the fine dining menu has!!

This is the more "accessible" of the two?!  How many Washingtonians does he expect will have "access"?

Fair point, JoshNE, but when a place calls itself "approachable" with those prices, some people may want to debate that. You're right, though, without tasting it, not a fair fight. I have a hard time believing a $56 roast chicken will be "worth it", but it may be! I just might never give it a chance, since I'm sort of cheap and would need loads of people saying it was amazeballs before I'd try it...

Here's the thing though. As far as I can tell, the chef never claimed Kinship would be "neighborhoody," or "accessible," or "approachable."  The restaurant was consistently described as the more casual of a pair of places he would open, one of which would be a "jewel box" of a restaurant with a set 7-course menu.  Ziebold himself explained in the Post that "Kinship isn't a bistro. We're trying to make it more accessible from a standpoint of being a la carte."  That is, it is more casual in comparison to the other place downstairs...not in comparison to TGI Fridays.

That is a far cry from him claiming it would be some quiet, rustic, neighborhood joint.

[DonRocks]

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.

Back in the early 1990s, Bernard Loiseau's "Chicken in a Pot" cost $267.

[Mark Slater]

Last time in Paris I had Poulet de Bresse cooked in a pigs bladder at the Bristol Hotel. $300. Yes, you can taste the difference.

[Bart]

Last time in Paris I had Poulet de Bresse cooked in a pigs bladder at the Bristol Hotel. $300. Yes, you can taste the difference.

But did you compare it to a Perdue chicken cooked in a pigs bladder?

That's what I'd really like to know.  If you took a high end chicken vs a supermarket chicken and gave them both to a chef and had them prepared the same way, would you be able to detect a difference?  And would the high end chicken taste better?

(And for the record, I'm not really concerned about the prices at this place or trying to attack the chef.  I'm just curious there's an actual difference in these "artisanal" foods or if it's just the power of suggestion)

[Josh]

Why on God's green Earth would he compare it to a Perdue chicken? I apologize in advance in that I am crankier than usual tonight, but this sort of thing is better suited to a Mythbusters fan-site rather than one devoted to discussing food.

People legitimately enjoy the pleasures of fine dining.  It's true.  No debunking needed.

[Bart]

Why on God's green Earth would he compare it to a Perdue chicken? I apologize in advance in that I am crankier than usual tonight, but this sort of thing is better suited to a Mythbusters fan-site rather than one devoted to discussing food.

People legitimately enjoy the pleasures of fine dining.  It's true.  No debunking needed.

I thought that this post was making that point.

The idea that a $15 a POUND chicken is so far superior to the Safeway version that it's blasphemous to even question the price of things

[Josh]

I thought that this post was making that point.

The idea that a $15 a POUND chicken is so far superior to the Safeway version that it's blasphemous to even question the price of things

It is superior. It tastes better. This phenomenon is not limited to chicken.  I was skeptical of the prices at District Fishwife until I cooked fish from there and realized I had not really worked with good ingredients until then.  The simplest preparations were on a completely different level...noticed by those who eat my food day in and day out (i.e. my family), and were not privy to the change in fishmonger.  Ingredients matter.  (And before I get challenged with a double-blind experiment, they matter for reasons beyond one's ability to reliably blindly differentiate them from their factory-produced counterparts in a sterile taste test.)

[DonRocks]

[My two cents: Every single person who has posted here has been reasonable, and has asked legitimate questions and made legitimate points. Some are starting from a different base than others. Some are trying to learn. Some are trying to teach. It's all okay - you all are doing a fabulous job with this discussion, and I don't think it's tiresome at all. Like anything else in this world, quality costs money. To quote one of my oldest friends, "The *most* you can get is what you pay for." What he's saying is that, sure, you can get ripped off, but there is no tooth fairy, and if you pay $15/pound for chicken, the *most* you can get is chicken that's worth $15/pound. - does that make sense? I decided to move this thread out of Kinship because it was becoming too unrelated and generalized at the same time - I did it in a hurry, so if I've made mistakes (which I probably have, in selecting which posts should and shouldn't have been split off, plesae write me and let me know, and I'll fix things. Carry on!

Also, I'd ask people to realize that some of our members are multi-millionaires, some are regular old people, and some are struggling young college students - we have a wide sampling of the general population here, and in this forum, we're all equals in my eyes - all of you mean the world to me.]

[Poivrot Farci]

What is the retail vs restaurant price range anyone reading would pay for:

1 x whole roasted 3-4lb chicken with vegetables and bread (4 servings)

1 x 750lm bottle of white wine with coasters and a smile (4 glasses)

And what determines the cost (personal finances and thrift notwithstanding)?

[DaveO]

It is superior. It tastes better. This phenomenon is not limited to chicken.  I was skeptical of the prices at District Fishwife until I cooked fish from there and realized I had not really worked with good ingredients until then.  The simplest preparations were on a completely different level...noticed by those who eat my food day in and day out (i.e. my family), and were not privy to the change in fishmonger.  Ingredients matter.  (And before I get challenged with a double-blind experiment, they matter for reasons beyond one's ability to reliably blindly differentiate them from their factory-produced counterparts in a sterile taste test.)

As to chicken I'm with Bart.  I have no experience with that price difference and quality difference.  I do have a good bit of experience with veal from a cooking end and from a dining perspective, (in that I've had what I know were "cr@ppy @ss cuts"  and while I can't quote price differentials off the top of my head right now, I'd always go with a better quality cut....and go to butchers with which I'm familiar.  The quality differences can be substantial.

I'm curious to the type of chickens and price points  that were prepared at Palena.  Best chicken I've  had and that was a loooooooooooooong time ago.

[Josh]

As to chicken I'm with Bart.  I have no experience with that price difference and quality difference.  I do have a good bit of experience with veal from a cooking end and from a dining perspective, (in that I've had what I know were "cr@ppy @ss cuts"  and while I can't quote price differentials off the top of my head right now, I'd always go with a better quality cut....and go to butchers with which I'm familiar.  The quality differences can be substantial.

I'm curious to the type of chickens and price points  that were prepared at Palena.  Best chicken I've  had and that was a loooooooooooooong time ago.

I guess the other point to consider is how the bird is prepared.  In a heavily spiced or sauced dish, I doubt anyone could tell a huge difference (although the size of the bird and texture of the meat may tip you off), but in a "simple" dish that showcases the chicken itself, I think it would be a bigger deal.

[Choirgirl21]

Yes, you can absolutely taste the difference. I can also taste the difference between the chickens from different local farms (I believe taste varies most based on what they have eaten, but I'm sure there are other factors). I don't mind the meat from Polyface chickens, but really dislike the flavor of the skin and fat. The chickens from P.A. Bowen I adore. Ferguson Family falls somewhere in between.

Eggs also vary quite a bit, especially in yolk quality.

[johnb]

I've participated in many of these discussions over the years, and read through many others.

IMO, in nearly every case, they start with the wrong premise, viz., that taste is based on how things "taste."  This is wrong.  Here's how I understand what actually happens.

Taste happens not on our tongues (or more accurately our noses, where the vast majority of our "taste" receptors are actually located) but in our brains.  The brain takes inputs from a host of places and puts them all together into what we experience as taste. It then sends the result to the nerves that are hooked up with our mouthes and we experience that taste in our mouthes.

In putting together the taste we experience, the brain uses inputs from the taste and smell receptors of course, but also many other things, including the look of the food, the surroundings, our previous experience with the food, positive and negative associations we have, genetic predispositions we may have, and most importantly our expectations and beliefs about the food we are about to ingest, among others.

Nearly everyone assumes what he/she is tasting is what is coming from the taste receptors; the importance of the rest is at best dimly understood, even though the effect of everything else is actually profound in many if not most cases, particularly when discussing the relative quality of like items (think $2 vs. $15 chickens).

What is all means is that there can be real taste differences experienced by someone tasting a $2 chicken next to a $15 chicken, but these differences may well not be based on any inherent "quality" difference in the two chickens themselves, i.e. that flavor input coming to the brain from the taste receptors.  This difference may come, in whole or part, from another aspect of the inputs that person's brain is using to construct that taste.  Our brains play tricks on us, all the time.

It needs to be emphasized that the better taste that is being experienced is genuine -- the pricy bird really does taste better and that may well legitimately matter to the individual and be worth the extra price.  The point is only that that better taste may be flowing from factors other than inherent differences in the chicken. In effect, those willing to pay $15 for the higher quality chicken may be paying the extra not for its inherent quality but, partly anyway, to fool their brains into thinking it's a better experience, and it is!  Of course they don't see it that way.

It's complicated.

[DonRocks]

It's complicated.

Very

[Bart]

What is all means is that there can be real taste differences experienced by someone tasting a $2 chicken next to a $15 chicken, but these differences may well not be based on any inherent "quality" difference in the two chickens themselves, i.e. that flavor input coming to the brain from the taste receptors.  This difference may come, in whole or part, from another aspect of the inputs that person's brain is using to construct that taste.  Our brains play tricks on us, all the time.

And this is the same phenomenon that has wine experts not being able to tell which is "better", a $20 bottle of wine or a $2000 bottle of wine until after they see the label.

[Josh]

I've participated in many of these discussions over the years, and read through many others.

IMO, in nearly every case, they start with the wrong premise, viz., that taste is based on how things "taste."  This is wrong.  Here's how I understand what actually happens.

Taste happens not on our tongues (or more accurately our noses, where the vast majority of our "taste" receptors are actually located) but in our brains.  The brain takes inputs from a host of places and puts them all together into what we experience as taste. It then sends the result to the nerves that are hooked up with our mouthes and we experience that taste in our mouthes.

In putting together the taste we experience, the brain uses inputs from the taste and smell receptors of course, but also many other things, including the look of the food, the surroundings, our previous experience with the food, positive and negative associations we have, genetic predispositions we may have, and most importantly our expectations and beliefs about the food we are about to ingest, among others.

Nearly everyone assumes what he/she is tasting is what is coming from the taste receptors; the importance of the rest is at best dimly understood, even though the effect of everything else is actually profound in many if not most cases, particularly when discussing the relative quality of like items (think $2 vs. $15 chickens).

What is all means is that there can be real taste differences experienced by someone tasting a $2 chicken next to a $15 chicken, but these differences may well not be based on any inherent "quality" difference in the two chickens themselves, i.e. that flavor input coming to the brain from the taste receptors.  This difference may come, in whole or part, from another aspect of the inputs that person's brain is using to construct that taste.  Our brains play tricks on us, all the time.

It needs to be emphasized that the better taste that is being experienced is genuine -- the pricy bird really does taste better and that may well legitimately matter to the individual and be worth the extra price.  The point is only that that better taste may be flowing from factors other than inherent differences in the chicken. In effect, those willing to pay $15 for the higher quality chicken may be paying the extra not for its inherent quality but, partly anyway, to fool their brains into thinking it's a better experience, and it is!  Of course they don't see it that way.

It's complicated.

This is what I was getting at with my "double blind taste test" remark.  Expectations, setting, presentation, Hell, even political beliefs go into how one perceives the taste of a dish.  There are plenty of reasons humanely raised chickens from small local farms taste better to me than Perdue, only one of which is the "quality" of the protein itself.

[Bart]

This is what I was getting at with my "double bind taste test" remark.  Expectations, setting, presentation, Hell, even political beliefs go into how one perceives the taste of a dish.  There are plenty of reasons humanely raised chickens from small local farms taste better to me than Perdue, only one of which is the "quality" of the protein itself.

I get all of that, but none of that was mentioned in Poivrot Farci's original post which was more about evil supermarkets devaluing livestock raised on a small organic farm being free range their entire life. My question was more about, all things being equal (preparation, setting, service, etc), will the supermarket version taste better/worse/different than the mom and pop farm version?

I realize that the supermarket version is shot full of chemicals and (probably) genetically engineered and ultimately worse for you in the long run than the free range version. But based on my very non-scientific, and certainty not double blind tests, I've never been wowed by pork or beef purchase directly from the (very) small farmer who raised them. I eat it and think, "this is good, but it doesn't taste any different than what I had last night from Safeway". Again, I'm not doing a side by side comparison so my taste test is flawed, but I could certainly tell the difference between a tomato out of my garden and a Safeway version.

[porcupine]

I've posted this before, but I'll post it again: Shattered Myths. Even though it's about stemware, it's a good follow-up to what johnb wrote above.

[Bart]

Thanks for posting that. I hadn't seen it before.

I especially liked the part about the discredited tongue map. I remember leaning about that way back in elementary school and it never made sense that I could only taste sweetness on a certain area of my tongue.

[Simul Parikh]

I bet most people couldn't tell in a random taste test - Perdue vs a whatever fancy artisanal bird - but I guess like that really good post by johnb says, it's so much more than that. And I guess when we go into a restaurant, we aren't doing random taste tests. That would be sort of a neat experiment, but it would be a flawed one, because we are humans.

Say in a randomized, blinded taste test the Perdue bird tasted as good or better... I still don't think all people would then choose the meal prepared with the Perdue bird. I think to a lot of people, the story matters, the cost matters, the treatment of the animal matters, and it makes the food taste better and the experience more richer. And, I think that's okay, especially for those with a lot of money. Some people like books on Kindles, while others swear it's just better to hold and feel the pages of a book. The words are exactly the same, eBooks are cheaper, but there are readers that just won't read on an eBook. I'm not one of them, but I totally get what they are saying. I'm sure with my palate, there are some macrobrewers that could produce a really good double or imperial IPA and I wouldn't be able to differentiate it between Pliny the Elder in a glass in my living room, if you didn't label them. But being in Sonoma County with my little sister, having pizza at Russian River Brewery, drinking that beer ... senses be damned, that is one of the best beers I've ever had, and I bet you'll think so, too, if you were there with company that you love. I like skiing out west at many resorts, and there are places with better snow and more skiable acres, and it's objectively people rate many of them as the best places in the world to ski. But, if I could afford it more often, I would go to Vail the majority of the time. It just "feels" better. The snow might not be "as good". It may be a bit smaller. True ski in and out is a bit harder to find. But, the place is absolute magic, and it doesn't matter what's objectively rated better, it's just the most magical place on earth.

I do love the discussion, I don't think it's tedious. I think it would be really interesting to have these tests and experiments, but I would hope people wouldn't change what they do, at least completely, based on the results. Context and the experience and the story matters... Otherwise, what are we?

[ScotteeM]

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.

Um, no, I don't believe that's been proven. I believe that I can tell the difference. It's not just taste, but color as well.

[johnb]

Um, no, I don't believe that's been proven. I believe that I can tell the difference. It's not just taste, but color as well.

Color can certainly vary in eggs, but there's no taste difference related to how the chickens are housed or, within normal limits, of what they eat (e.g. if you feed them onions you may be able to tell, but nobody feeds chickens onions).  The egg industry has done carefully controlled tastings, in artificial lighting that masks any color or appearance differences, and nobody can reliably distinguish among different ones based on inherent flavor.  Eggs are a good example of what I posted earlier; any perceived difference in taste flows from expectations, not from inherent differences in the eggs themselves.  It's your brain, not the egg.

Here's an article.  Pay special attention to the comments of Pat Curtis on the second page.

To the extent that local organic free range etc. reach you in a fresher state that might have an impact, but it's very subtle, and commercially-produced eggs can also reach you quickly and fresh.

Me, I always buy cage-free eggs, but that's for humanitarian reasons, not because they taste different.

[DonRocks]

Um, no, I don't believe that's been proven. I believe that I can tell the difference. It's not just taste, but color as well.

---

And this is the same phenomenon that has wine experts not being able to tell which is "better", a $20 bottle of wine or a $2000 bottle of wine until after they see the label.

A $20 wine *can* be better than a $2,000 wine, it really can be. But people who rely *solely* on this line of thinking need to explain to me why I can often guess the exact wine served double-blind: vintage, producer, and vineyard. It doesn't happen often, but it happens often enough where it's not coincidence.

And in case that sounded like a "humble brag," ask yourself this: if you hear a song, can you tell it's The Beatles? Can you sometimes name the exact song? Assuming "yes," then what's the difference? One is auditory; the other is gustatory - granted, one is much more subtle than the other, and requires more training, but the two are essentially the same thing - it's simply your brain recognizing something you've encountered in the past, nothing more, nothing less.

I have a well-developed palate memory, I acknowledge that, but so do other people - blind tasting is an acquired skill, and people who poo-poo it are simply mistaken - it's not some type of superhuman feat. It takes years of practice and training, but it can be done by the average person, I promise you.

One of my favorite anecdotes about this involves two gentlemen talking about blind tasting. One asks the other:

"Have you ever mistaken a Rhone for a Burgundy?"

"Not since lunch."

It's very easy to get tripped up and go down the wrong path, and even the very best blind tasters can make terrible mistakes, and sound like complete fools, especially when they start hedging and losing confidence. It's happened to me more times than I can count, and in the wrong circumstance, it can be extremely embarrassing. One thing I've learned is that first instincts should not be discarded entirely - once you start second-guessing yourself, go back to what you originally thought, and ask yourself why you thought that. While it may not be correct, there are often aspects about your first thoughts that are insightful. A common practice of mine is to sniff the wine, without tasting it, and to immediately blurt out a vintage, region, producer, and vineyard, completely on instinct - *then*, I start to think about things. But a shocking amount of times, those initial instincts turn out to be pretty good - it's like an officer reverting to basic-training in a panic situation.

[johnb]

Many expert wine drinkers can indeed identify specific wines tasted blind.  Wines are different and distinct.  But there are stories that go the other way.  I recall many years ago, when I was just getting interested in wine, I subscribed to a wine and spirits newsletter that always included a blind tasting article, where the tasters were persons in the trade.  On one occasion the tasting was of sweet sherries.  Gallo Livingston Cream Sherry was the winner, basically wiping out Harvey's Bristol Cream and others.  In another example from that era, I recall an article in a British wine magazine in which Cognacs were tasted blind, again by folks in the trade.  In that case the organizer slipped in a bottle of good single malt scotch and said nothing.  Nobody realized it was a scotch.

Take it FWIW, but no question we can fool ourselves.

[DaRiv18]

I am more sensitive to textures than I am to tastes, and commodity chickens have a very unpleasant stickiness to me. When I chew it, I get this taffy like resistance and my molars feel like they are smacking as they process the protein. Butcher birds are cleaner and don't have that residue or whatever it is. For fried chicken I don't notice it as much bust definitely for roast chickens.

[Simul Parikh]

Don-

You're saying without any information other than a glass full of wine, you can often identify that much information?

I want to see this in action!

[Simul Parikh]

Don-

You're saying without any information other than a glass full of wine, you can often identify that much information?

I want to see this in action!

[DonRocks]

Don-

You're saying without any information other than a glass full of wine, you can often identify that much information?

I want to see this in action!

It's rare, but it can happen, and it's not just me; all of these people studying for Masters of Wine and Master Sommelier can do it on occasion - what usually happens is that you'll be wrong, but for the right reasons (if that makes any sense). You'll say such-and-such is an old-world wine, less than five years old, and hasn't seen any new oak. Then you'll start getting more specific, often becoming incorrect at that point. Once in a while (maybe 5% of the time?) you'll nail something, and it feels great!

Again, this is not unlike you hearing a song and saying, "This is the Beatles singing 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,'" only it takes much more study and practice - maybe a better analogy is seeing a canvas of paint with a blob of color on it, and knowing who the artist is, because you've studied that artist's works before, and because there's something about that blob that recalls a particular artist. That's much harder than identifying a Beatles song, right? The great thing (for me, anyway), is that even though you lose your chops when you stop practicing, it's kind of a lifetime skill (like riding a bike?) because olfactory memory lasts a long time (think of scents that evoke memories of your childhood - things that you haven't thought of for decades, but there they are, plain as day).

I don't sit around doing blind tastings much these days, but I used to do it as a matter of course, and so do all these Master Sommelier candidates you read about - they can do it, too (although I've never seen it, I'm sure they can; otherwise, they wouldn't pass the tasting portion of the exam). The important thing isn't "to be right," so much as it is "to be intelligently wrong" - to have the person serving the wine say, "You're wrong on all counts, but what you say makes perfect sense." Now *that* is something that happens to me all the time, and I'm no more gifted than anyone else; just a little more experienced than a non-oenophile.

All this to say that you can *absolutely* tell the difference between an industrial chicken and a high-quality chicken. Some people can't, but many others can. Look at the post about the Mast Brothers Chocolate Scandal - the blogger who suspected they were melting down pre-existing chocolate used the exact same methodology that a good blind wine taster uses. I'm not trying to insinuate that there's a small group of super-tasters who possess a talent that nobody else possesses - I'm saying that most people can do this with enough study.

[lion]

I am more sensitive to textures than I am to tastes, and commodity chickens have a very unpleasant stickiness to me. When I chew it, I get this taffy like resistance and my molars feel like they are smacking as they process the protein. Butcher birds are cleaner and don't have that residue or whatever it is. For fried chicken I don't notice it as much bust definitely for roast chickens.

Texture is an extremely good point as a quality that is easily overlooked in these conversations about taste. It is overall very representative of the quality of meats and something that is still evident after a meat has been cooked.

[DonRocks]

Texture is an extremely good point as a quality that is easily overlooked in these conversations about taste. It is overall very representative of the quality of meats and something that is still evident after a meat has been cooked. 

Don't forget also the relative size of the leg meat in relation to the breast meat - chickens that walk around have more meat on their legs.

[johnb]

Don't forget also the relative size of the leg meat in relation to the breast meat - chickens that walk around have more meat on their legs.

Are you conflating egg production (chickens kept to lay eggs) with broiler production (chickens kept to produce meat)?  These are totally different and distinct.

Chickens that you eat (broilers), both low end and high end, are raised in roughly similar conditions, in chicken houses, and have been "walking around" roughly the same amount.  None have been constrained by being raised in cages; cages are strictly for egg producers.

Only a very tiny proportion of chicken meat in commerce comes from chickens that ever laid an egg, caged or free-roaming, and you only get it when you sit down to a nice bowl of canned chicken noodle soup or canned broth or something along those lines, because by the time they reach the end of their egg-laying careers they are about 1.5 years old and no longer suitable for table use.  Essentially all chicken raised for fresh meat has been walking around, for their short life spans of just a few weeks.

[DonRocks]

Are you conflating egg production (chickens kept to lay eggs) with broiler production (chickens kept to produce meat)?  These are totally different and distinct. 

Maybe you're right - I always thought "free range" was (at least in theory) the opposite to "high-density floor confinement," and that both terms applied to chickens for consumption.

[Joe H]

Yes, you can absolutely taste the difference. I can also taste the difference between the chickens from different local farms (I believe taste varies most based on what they have eaten, but I'm sure there are other factors). I don't mind the meat from Polyface chickens, but really dislike the flavor of the skin and fat. The chickens from P.A. Bowen I adore. Ferguson Family falls somewhere in between.

Eggs also vary quite a bit, especially in yolk quality.

Middleburg's Fields of Athenry belongs in any discussion of the best supplier of chicken in the Mid Atlantic.

[JSnake]

Maybe you're right - I always thought "free range" was (at least in theory) the opposite to "high-density floor confinement," and that both terms applied to chickens for consumption.

Ratio of dark meat to breast meat has to do with breeding methods more than anything. Some time ago -- before I was born, probably -- mass-consumer poultry farming companies got the idea in their head that we love breast meat. One only has to sit at a Thanksgiving table and witness everyone and their dog hoarding the dark meat to know this isn't entirely true but if you look at sales numbers for chicken breast compared to legs or thighs at the supermarket, you can see where distributors got the idea. So ever since then, the average birds you pick up at the grocery store, whether it's a chicken or a turkey, has been specifically bred to maximize breast meat. So next time you're shopping for a whole bird, compare the breast on a generic Butterball to that of an organic, free-range, heritage, whatever you want to call it, bird. The mass-market one will have a breast that looks almost engorged, oversized to the point of ridiculous. The other, more expensive, bird, will have a more even distribution of white and dark meat, without a breast that looks like it's been injected with botox.

[Poivrot Farci]

At the end of a French holiday I scouted some Gallic birds at some French markets, seeing about a dozen breeds as well as guinea hens, ducks, turkeys, squab, geese and live quail at a market in the Southwest Bèarn region.  The quality, variety and availability are stunning and being able to buy in the marketplace whatever premium ingredients are being served at a restaurant is remarkable. While much of the posh poultry takes showcase real estate during the weeks leading up to New Year's Eve, it is still available all year round and revered birds have not sunk to any pedestrian levels on home or restaurant menus.  They fetch high prices that are commiserate with the cost of raising them (slower and longer growth rate), more pampered slaughtering,  (elite Bresse birds being plucked by hand on account of the thin skin) and smaller production on pasture. The best of the lot are sewn up in cloth bags (au torchon) to hold an elongated shape. 

Fancy schmancy chickens aren't going to bring world peace or resurrect Elvis, but we spend lots of money to battle the consequences of raising shitty ones (shitty water, shitty land, dead fish) and it is still the cheapest commodity animal that we have. And we each eat about 100lbs of it per year.  More than anyone else, but they are catching up down under.

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

In it's raw state as a whole bird, more than likely. You can kick the tires and tell from the feet if it has bumblefoot (associated with confined animals), breast blisters (Cornish cross birds have trouble lifting their bodies), leg to breast ratio which varies from breed to breed, check the teeth, see if the beak has been cut,  whether it was scalded or plucked, air-chilled, if there were too many birds in the tumbler and they broke wings or legs after they were bled, how they took the crop out, the color and size of the legs compared to the breasts, the thickness of the skin and if it was slaughtered with care. Basically you can tell if it lived a life worth living.  However, the quality of slaughtering is crucial since a creature can be impeccable the moment it leaves the farm but then gets carelessly hacked at.  I am not confident that many people, sadists or otherwise, aspire to work in slaughterhouses and it is part of the trade that demands a deft, if not unflappable hand.

Tendonitis no more, though the bird in the foreground has something ticklish on it's foot which doesn't seem normal

The less processed the better (about 70% meat yield from a whole bird); feet allow for pulling tendons from the drumsticks so they don't shrink back and gelatin for stock with the neck & back; wings, giblets and so on what with some resourcefulness and know how -plenty of which is abundant or ex-tractable on this forum, books or the intertubes.

Yellow chicken from Gátinais (Gers, north of Paris). 3-4lb, $4.35/lb.  Marché Popincourt, Paris 11th. 

All cooked in the same manner, probably, though texture has much to do with affecting what we perceive and lump together as "taste".  All this chicken chat ruffled by feathers and I would have been remiss if I left a France trip without tasting any.  On my last night last week I had a Poularde de Gátinais, an old French yellow-skinned breed which, like most birds on the market, benefits from an IGP designation (Protected Geographic Indication) at La Cave de L'Insolite, which at 21€ it was the priciest of a limited post-Christmas menu, but modestly priced at the market.  I enjoyed a deboned leg that was seared only on the skin and basted with some duck fat.  It was cooked to the cusp of medium well and while one could be excused for calling the American embassy in a panic and Yelping about it, I was indifferent, because it wasn't an industrial bird and over there the onus on food safety is not on the consumer (Frontline has a documentary about the health liabilities of factory chickens that is sure to get stuck in your craw).  It was ever so slightly crimson, the way leg meat should be, exceedingly tender but firm, savory, juicy and reminiscent of guinea hen.  They had taken out that unpleasant bit of fat in the thigh and knee cartilage thing and cooked it to order.  Cornish Cross legs in comparison are the same color as the breast and taste like bland wet packaging material. 

Blue-footed Orléanais (Loire valley).3-4lb, $20 each.  Marché d'Aligre, Paris 12th.  

Could I tell the difference?

If you know what to look and taste for, hopefully.  If it is something entirely new there might not be a benchmark to relate it to.  I'm not sure when in time chicken became neutered of all descriptors relating to breed (exceptions for eggs) or style other than the manner in was raised, by whom or how the thing got cooked.  While beef has it's Angus, Hereford, Scottish Highland, Charolais and other pedigrees and the pigs carry fashionable names but they are more novelty than anything since most heritage breeds have died off for very practical reasons (lard breeds like Old Spot Gloucestershire have no real use in the age of refrigeration, non-stick pans and readily available cheap(er) calories).  But the hapless chicken is *just* a cheap vehicle for meat.

Chicken from Landes (Gascony, southwest France). 3-4lb, $46 each and blue-footed Bresse  Marché Popincourt, Paris 11th.  

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.

Depends on how much you value or pay attention to food that goes into & out your food holes.  And the consequences of eating food which extend far beyond the immediate "taste" but short of blood diamonds. Maybe in the realm of that seafood decoder ring thing with varying colors of shame based on creatures in short supply you were planning on having over for dinner and their habitat you just wrecked. Bravo.

Bresse chicken "en torchon". (Burgundy)  $13/lb  Marché Popincourt, Paris 11th.  

Eating is more than fattening up on calories out of necessity (or boredom), sustenance and "tasting good",  Different foods have pros/cons like virtually everything purchased be they robot vacuum cleaners, cars or electronics which will be obsolete in a year. But food has more of an impact on one's well-being and while I've gladly sacrificed some days for the next by not wearing a helmet the instant I step out of the house, getting starched on too much of brown liquor and the drugs, 2 of those are legitimate non-essential vices stashed in the unfinished catacombs of the food pyramid.  Chicken on the other hand serves more of a purpose for keeping your machine ticking"¦ unlessn' your idea of a Thelma & Louise flavored bender is fixin' up with Josiah to get yer chin curtains greased in chicken juice and Cheetos while listening to a clandestine ham radio in the turnip cellar. 

The food dorks in R&D over at Pepsi Co's snack lab ($38 billion in sales in 2014) have worked tirelessly to engineer items that taste Grrrrrrrreat! first and foremost and the palate might not be able to taste the additives or notice the nutritional handicaps, environmental consequences, animal welfare, human labor toll at slaughterhouses (disturbingly detailed in Fast Food Nation) and distribution/packaging resources used.  If you think of food as fuel for your body, why skimp on something that can cause costly and often painful repairs and will only set you back the cost of 2 movie tickets and popcorn.

Guinea hen from Challans (western Loire) and Bresse chicken $65 each. Marché d'Aligre.  Paris 12th. 

The overwhelming majority of the broiler chickens you find on the market place are the Cornish cross hybrid broilers.  It has been a triumph of genetics for those who like lots of white breast meat, and the scourge of poultry.  They are cheap to raise, lean and mostly white meat.  Kind of like shitty bread. The birds have been bred to grow very quickly and faster than their bodies can adapt to the weight. Almost 70% have crippling leg problems and videos used to rate gait abnormalities aren't pleasant to watch, even if it is just a chicken They are lazy, don't scratch or forage for bugs on pasture, suffer from internal and skeletal issues and pretty much just sit there. There is probably a proverb that correlates the physiology of consumers and such birds via consumption. 

Broiler chickens are often billed as "no added hormones", which is true, like that trendy gluten-free grapefruit juice, but growth hormones have been banned in poultry production for over 50 years now, and the slick eager beavers over in marketing just want to remind consumers of how honest the caring the factory farm is.  Those chickens are given an equally trendy "vegetarian feed", even though chickens are most certainly omnivores and those at the bottom of the pecking order get cannibalized dead or alive. "Hormone free" labeling has been ruled as gibberish by the USDA since all living creatures and even chickens have hormones.  It's what gets them laid.

Foie gras and capons from Gers, $72 each. Marché st. Quentin.  Paris 10th. 

Other older heirloom breeds have their merits, depending on whether they are being raised for meat or eggs, different feed conversions, ease of raising, temperature resistance, growth rate and such. Some USDA inspectors have adverse reactions to seeing birds with feathers leaving a slaughterhouse, but like closer inspection of a wine cork, the feathers also prove breed bonafides and the care taken in plucking them, so some finer producers leave conclusive feathers around the neck and tail.

Capon from Bresse.  2015 Agricultural award winner.  Marché st. Quentin.  Paris 10th. $30/lb

I think to a lot of people, the story matters, the cost matters, the treatment of the animal matters, and it makes the food taste better and the experience more richer. And, I think that's okay, especially for those with a lot of money.  

Perhaps, but this is about an occasional chicken, not yachts, and we aren't living in post war Stalingrad. I don't think hobos are lining up at Kinship either. This is the 3^rd wealthiest region of the richest country on the planet, by a large margin.  And somehow as a nation we spend only 6% of our annual income on food, which is less than half that of Western Europe and other contemporaries and a pittance compared to the rest of the world. And what do we have to show for it other than a population with 30% obesity, 600,000 deaths from heart disease (almost 50% in the African American community) and 10% type 2 diabetes?  Of course lifestyle affects health just as much as food, but if the food is intentionally and willfully deficient, then that is a problem that surely affects our prosperity and efficiency as a country, not to mention the other kind of heartache.

Browder's certified organic Poulet Rouge (French heritage breed). Equally sized legs and breasts.  Mattituck, NY. $8/lb.

Top shelf quality and flavor. 125 are slaughtered a week on the farm.  Tom Colicchio is a reliable customer and neighbor.

US has managed to devalue and industrialize the majority of its top 3 meat productions.  More than 90% of pork is raised indoors, mostly on concrete and while administering growth hormones to pigs (and poultry) has been outlawed in the US for quite some time now, the questionable ractopamine is perfectly legal here, but has not been approved in the EU or China.  75% of all US beef is feedlot raised on concrete and growth hormones are legal, but reassuringly labeled as "all natural" or some other stretched out bullshit, as if CAFOs and the highly industrialized feed is natural.  Potato Baron Simplot's Grandview feedlot in Idaho is the largest in the US with 150,000 head of cattle squeezed into 750 acres, or 200 animals per acre, each with 218 sq/ft of dirt to call home.  By law, Bresse chickens -which are much smaller than cattle- must have at least 102 sq/ft per bird.

8 Hands Farm organic Poulet Noir (black footed French Challons breed).  Cutchogue, NY. $7.50/lb.   Very large and long legs for those who want legs that go up all the way, and small breasts. Top Chef Tom buys with approval as well, and their lamb.

Virtually all meat chickens in the US are raised in confinement.  Consumer Reports found that "an analysis of fresh, whole broilers bought at stores nationwide, two-thirds harbored salmonella and/or campylobacter, the leading bacterial causes of foodborne disease. That's a modest improvement since January 2007, when we found that eight of 10 broilers harbored those pathogens".

As for what's out there in stores and restaurants: the liberating, wholesome and groovy sounding Freebird are allegedly "guilt-free" which is terrific, and "free to wander in barns on family farms" just like one is free to roam around at a packed Skynyrd cover band show at the 9:30 club.  Tyson, Cargill, Koch Foods and Purdue are also family owned.  3lb birds cost $1.29lb wholesale.  That means that after hatching, feeding, slaughtering, processing, packaging and shipping to a wholesale purveyor, $1.29 is enough for everyone to get paid and makes a profit.  That's cheap, and they sell to almost every Whole Foods in the Mid-Atlantic, which is a lot of birds and/or family farms.  There is no indication of what breed they raise, but they look very much like Cornish Cross. 

Senat Poultry sells Penobscott/Cobb breed birds ($1.89/lb wholesale, 3.5lb average bird) that have a better leg to meat ratio, thicker skin, darker leg meat and are Halal slaughtered which allows them to keep their necks & feet. They are "fed a strict vegetarian diet", like orphans, and are probably scolded too.

Bobo chickens are definitely Cornish Cross and at times are massive, but with the $2.29/lb pricetag you get a whole bird that has only been eviscerated, liver and gizzards included, just like batteries.  It is a wonder the birds can walk.  I tried to yank tendons from one that looked like it had clubbed feet and all the meat came out.  The birds are slaughtered Confucius style which means that are kept intact with the head & feet which requires a religious exemption for the slaughterhouse.

The first 2 claim their growers don't use antibiotics, but when raising that many, their claim is suspect.

Much better is Ayrshire Farms (800 acres) in Upperville  has American Bronze, Dominique, Red Caps and a few other breeds which retail for $6-$8/lb for 3-4lb birds. Excellent Scottish Highland grass-fed beef as well.  Like many renaissance farmers, Sandy Lerner built a nest egg (co-counder of Cisco Systems) and raises better animals with integrity for the pleasure more than the profit, because she can

All budgets, minds and tastes should be able to enjoy chicken and I am not advocating draconian chicken mandates, but perhaps there should be more and better choices and the nutritional standards raised for the good of the flock rather than filling the pockets of fat cats who benefit from a population that has little other option to wean itself from the cheap chicken.

If Mr. Ziebold and others take pride in doing the calculus and serving what they deem to be a products that meet a tolerable balance of taste and consequences, and there is a demand for it, good for them. No one is under any obligation to split a whole roasted chicken at a finer restaurant between 2 people for a benign dinner no more than they need a Bugatti to get there, but it is nice to spoil oneself and after flying 1^st class, coach might as well be a chicken barn.

[johnb]

Ratio of dark meat to breast meat has to do with breeding methods more than anything. Some time ago -- before I was born, probably -- mass-consumer poultry farming companies got the idea in their head that we love breast meat. One only has to sit at a Thanksgiving table and witness everyone and their dog hoarding the dark meat to know this isn't entirely true but if you look at sales numbers for chicken breast compared to legs or thighs at the supermarket, you can see where distributors got the idea. So ever since then, the average birds you pick up at the grocery store, whether it's a chicken or a turkey, has been specifically bred to maximize breast meat. So next time you're shopping for a whole bird, compare the breast on a generic Butterball to that of an organic, free-range, heritage, whatever you want to call it, bird. The mass-market one will have a breast that looks almost engorged, oversized to the point of ridiculous. The other, more expensive, bird, will have a more even distribution of white and dark meat, without a breast that looks like it's been injected with botox.

What you say is partly true but it's much more true of turkey than of chicken.  Turkey has been bread to maximize breast size to a much greater degree than chicken.

The American preference for white chicken meat is based, in my opinion, primarily on the mostly erroneous idea that white chicken meat is significantly lower in calories than the more flavorful dark meat -- actually the difference is small.  The preference for white meat turkey is probably based mostly on the difficulty of carving a turkey leg which is full of those little bony things and is usually cooked to dryness to boot.

In practice, and in contrast to turkeys, dark meat of chicken is used up by selling it cheap and exporting lots of chicken legs.  That's great for those of us who prefer dark meat -- we buy thighs by the bag and eat cheap.

Key point is that, as you intimated, the relative breast size is based on breed, not on how the bird was raised.  So if your free-range organic bird has a small breast, it's not because of how it was raised and fed, but its breed; an "organic" turkey can have just as much of an oversized breast as a butterball.  Of course, a "heritage" breed presumably is old-school so would be expected to have a smaller breast.

My absolute favorite part of all poultry is the oyster, which is part of the thigh where it meets the backbone.  I'd be happy if someone would breed chicken/turkey to maximize the oyster, but of course no one ever will because hardly anybody knows about it.  Whenever I see anyone carving a turkey I ask them to turn it over and dig out the oysters, which I nearly always have to point to.  But OK, more for me.

[Joe H]

Poivrot Farci, incredible post.  Worthy of Saveur.  Thank you!

[Barbara]

OK, I'll admit that I am late to this party. I'll just say that I never buy chicken or eggs at any supermarket. My eggs come directly from my CSA farmer in Pennsylvania and we don't eat much meat or poultry at home--except, when we have people in for dinner. Which was the case on New Year's Day. I picked up a chicken from Lancaster County at Smucker Farms on 14th Street. It cost nearly $20 for a nearly 5 pound bird. I forgot that birds from farmers markets come with the neck attached. Which, I don't know exactly how to deal with.

In any case, with a bird that expensive, I Googled the best way to roast it. The unanimous vote was Thomas Keller's method. Surprise, surprise. It worked out wonderfully. We have a smoke detector that is so sensitive that it goes off whenever I cook anything at a high temperature. Fortunately, we have found that a fan pointed directly at the smoke detector will make things right.

The bottom line is this: if you are willing to eat industrially-produced chicken (or other meat), then you can buy it cheap at your local supermarket. If, on the other hand, you care about where and how it is produced you will pay much, much more for the "artisanal" stuff. My only concern with this thread is paying a premium at a restaurant for CAFO products.

[NolaCaine]

Another one late to the party and here's my 2cents.

Every time i cook a virgin bird or virgin beef or virgin pork, my husband notices.  He asks:  What did you do to this thing, it tastes so good.  I just purchased expensive meat.  I notice that it's more forgiving. For example, overcook at regular bird and it tastes overcooked but over cook an Athenry bird and nobody's going to notice unless you really overcooked it. Same for pork chops.  I frankly never overcook beef; i barely cook it at all.

*virgin=ecofriendly, organic, locally sourced.

I LOVED the bird lesson above.

[Mark Slater]

Thank you, Mr. Shapiro, for an epic post.

[Keithstg]

Another one late to the party and here's my 2cents.

I LOVED the bird lesson above.

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!

[TedE]

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?

[DaRiv18]

i know that Harvey's Market stocks D'Artagnan Green Circle birds; are they any good?  

Last night, our family had a roasted 3.5 lb GC bird from Harvey's Market, as we have had for several months now since they've carried them.  From the roasted carcass and neck, I made about 4 cups of rich chicken stock, which I will use for soups, beans, or whatever.