Singing braises
Many know that while I cook, eat and serve all kinds of meat and poultry, I am married to a vegan. This produces some very robust discussions about the ethics of food. Combined with the fact we keep a number of animals and breeds of poultry on our land, my interest in both animal husbandry standards and the ethical questions of food production has grown exponentially over the past five years.
One of my main concerns revolves around the poultry and egg industries. For years we have been aware of caged versus free-range eggs and the health implications of hormones used to promote growth in chickens cultivated for their meat. The horror doesn’t stop with these two aspects; there are so many little details the general consumer is unaware of. Information is readily available online but so many of us forget that the chicken on the supermarket shelf was once a life. For example, in the meat industry, birds can be selected for slaughter just 21 days after hatching. The birds themselves have been genetically bred so they grow at a prodigious rate, removing the need for hormones. They live in dire conditions far from those that fulfil the needs of the average chook. In the egg industry, rooster chicks don’t even make it to 21 days: on day one, all the rooster chicks are killed.
Yet, various cuisines of the world have recipes that yearn for fully grown birds. Birds that have seen sun, run on grass, scratched in the undergrowth, bathed in the dust. Birds that have had a life, strengthened their leg muscles, developed their chests. Where are the cockerels for the coq au vin or the jungle fowl curry? Birds that give flavour and texture and viscosity. Birds that by having a life can nourish ours.
Some farmers are starting to revert to the old practices. It takes time, money and a rebellious nature to “buck the system”, but it is being done. I have been supporting a young egg farmer in his quest to allow the roosters a life. Instead of culling all the rooster chicks, he is growing them out. The birds are pasture raised, get to sleep on perches at night, get to do all the things that chickens do. At 18-20 weeks, when they become roosters and the age-old farm problem of testosterone comes into play, the birds are humanely dispatched and sent out into the kitchens of Victoria. The meat is so different to everything else we can buy. In this traditional coq au vin, a riff on a Julia Child recipe, my rooster meat takes about twice as long to cook as a regular bird but is more than twice as nice.
Keep an eye out for roosters in your area and give this a go, supporting a fledgling but necessary industry. And believe me, the robust discussions continue at our house. Why is 18 weeks better than one day if the outcome is the same? It’s a tough question. Twisting the words of Tennyson, is it better to have lived and lost than to have never lived at all?