“What Is Wrong with the Chicken in This Country?”
Why do restaurants serve such boring chicken? And where can you get chicken that actually has some flavor? You know I’ll tell you, right?
In the mid-90s, my sister and brother-in-law had an au pair from France to help take care of their young children. Laetitia was a delight—she was from the department of the Gers, in the less-traveled Southwestern region of Gascony; after her stay in the U.S., we were lucky enough to visit her family. Her father was a butcher, so you can imagine how well we ate—foie gras, magret de canard, lamb, Gers chicken, all from the source of some of the best cuisine in all of France.
If Laetitia was shocked by American food habits, she was generally kind enough not to say anything. Except one day, when we were dining out in the U.S., she was looking at a menu and she just couldn’t keep it in any longer.
“Can I ask you … what is wrong with the chicken in this country?” she said.
I’m pretty sure Dave and I burst out laughing. We knew exactly what she was talking about.
In France, chicken isn’t some bland penance you endure just because you think you have to deny yourself the steak. It’s a wonderful thing in and of itself. The fact that the French don’t settle for subpar chicken is probably why the classic poulet-frites (roast chicken with French fries) tastes so good. Oh, that and the fact that they know how to roast a chicken.
Alas, here in the U.S., you can rarely get a beautiful roast chicken—crackly skin, luscious, flavor-charged interior; rather, for our bland, mass-produced chicken to give any satisfaction at all, it has to be sauced or otherwise folderoled to oblivion at fancy restaurants, or fried anywhere else (a pleasure, sure, but not all the time!). And have you ever noticed how often chicken salads and sandwiches and just about all other chicken this-and-that come with bacon? There’s a reason for that.
Check out this photo I took a few years ago at a your average supermarket chain (Marché-U) in the sleepy coastal town of Beaulieu-sur-Mer, France. This was their selection of chicken—I count about a dozen birds from very specific regions and/or different varieties of chicken.
What do we get in most of the U.S.? A handful of very similar options, most of which are subpar, flavorless, and watered down.
By that, I mean many supermarket chicken products have been chilled in a water-sodium solution after butchering and cleaning. This adds up to 12% of the chicken’s weight in water, diluting the flavor. Calvin Schnucker at The Good Butcher, explains that “air chilling matters a lot.” He worked at a plant in Kentucky where the chickens were air-chilled (rather than water chilled). The result? “The chicken stays fresher longer, with less slime, and the muscles stay firmer—they don’t develop a mushy texture.” Plus, he adds. “I’m not paying for extra water weight, and neither are the customers.”
That’s why he sells air-chilled Bell and Evans chickens, which are allowed to roam free (albeit indoors) and are fed a vegetarian diet with no antibiotics, growth hormones, or chemicals.
It’s a great bird—and truly great flavor comes through. I’ve purchased this brand from both The Good Butcher and Old Station Craft Meats—check out the photo to see how I get them to cut it for me, especially when entertaining.
If Great Chicken Is Available, Why Do Restaurants Serve Such Boring Chicken?
Let me start by saying hats off to chef Dom Iannarelli at Prime and Providence for starring Bell & Evans chicken on his menu.
“I would purchase from someplace more local, but most of them don’t offer a fresh product in the amount we need,” he said. “Bell and Evans was the obvious choice.”
The kitchen roasts an airline breast on their famed coal-fired hearth, and serves it with an arugula pesto and orange agrodolce sauce.
But get this: they remove the wing bone! Say what? For me, one of the pleasures of the airline chicken breast is that it comes skin on and almost boneless, except for that little “wingette” bone, which keeps some of the richness and flavor you might miss. It’s part of what makes this cut such a joy to eat.
Of course, Iannarelli knows all of this—but he also knows his diners. The kind of diner who orders chicken simply does not want to wrestle with that little wing bone—they want neat, easy, and unchallenging. (Thank heavens these diners will allow the skin or there would be no point!). What does the kitchen do with those juicy bits of wing bone? Reserved for staff meals—for those who appreciate a little flavorful rebellion in their chicken
Wing bone or no wing bone, the Prime & Providence dish still sounds terrific. But Iannarelli did clue me into why so much chicken is so boring elsewhere. Could it be that people who order chicken simply prefer blander, safer, (and let’s face it, cheaper) options?
Calvin Schnucker at The Good Butcher also mentioned that chicken-eaters pretty much demand value. “Chicken is a tough one because people really do expect it to be cheap and plentiful. We don’t see the movement towards heritage breed chicken.”
This probably explains why chicken is so tasteless in most restaurants. Don’t get me wrong—I’m not saying you can’t find good chicken dishes, but generally, it’s not the chicken that tastes good, but everything they’ve done to the blank, bland slate that makes the dish semi-worthwhile. (Bacon, anyone?)
Consumers—Here Comes Your Chance
If you, like me, are thinking, “Hey! I’d pony up for some really good, fresh, local, pasture-raised chicken if someone would actually sell it,” you’ll get a shot to vote with your pocketbook this fall.
Schnucker says he’s teaming up with a Warren County crew raising pastured, non-GMO chickens. “We’ll see the first of those in October,” he says. The real test? Whether eaters are willing to back the premium local bird—or if chicken still sells mainly on sticker price, no matter the story (or quality) behind it.
He says that for the first week, these will likely even be sold fresh; then, they’ll have to freeze them. To keep in the loop, sign up for his newsletter.
Where Else I Get My Bird
Of course you can get good local chicken here and there, but you truly have to hunt it down. I’m a huge fan of the boneless, skin-on capon thighs from Holdeman Farms. These are available at the Iowa Food Coop. Let me just say that nothing I’ve tasted in recent years comes as close to the true free-range, millet-fed chicken I remember eating back on my grandparents’ Greene County farm in my childhood. I wrote about Holdeman’s capons here.
Another Bird about Town (+ a Chef’s Recipe)
I asked chef George Formaro about Gerber’s Amish Farm Chicken, sold in the freezer case at Gateway Market. “I love how this chicken tastes,” he says, “We have sold it for years. It is simply good. Chicken should by all measures taste like chicken, and this does.” He also appreciates the way the chickens are raised in “large, roomy houses where they can roam freely and eat and drink as they like.”
Here’s a preparation idea for chicken thighs from Formaro:
“My absolute favorite preparation is to salt the bone in, skin-on chicken thighs—a dry brine if you will: A little garlic, thyme, black pepper, and a pinch of sugar to help the dry brine do its work. Refrigerate it skin up, several hours at least. If you have room in the fridge, it’s even better if you can place the thighs on a rack in the fridge during this process to dry them a bit.
Then, I roast the bone-in, skin-on thighs in the oven at around 375°F uncovered, skin up, until the internal temperature is close to 200°F.* That way the chicken just pulls off the bone and the skin turns super crispy.”
*While 200°F may seem high, Formaro says, “I think the thing that sets this particular preparation apart from others is that I take the internal temperature close to 200°F. Because of the brine, the chicken thighs stay crispy and juicy.”
Don’t Forget
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Thank you for featuring Holdeman Farms (I've often used the whole capons as a substitute for Thanksgiving turkey) and The Good Butcher. I no longer buy chicken or pork from industrial "farms" for a number of reasons, and cannot understand why locals who have access to these fantastic products don't skip the big box stores' meat and poultry aisles.
this is so fascinating! thanks for sharing