Chicken in the kitchen

Down the Hill and Across the Road

The chicken in the kitchen

I do not take credit for this story. It comes from the experiences of my wife growing up on a farm in The Missouri Ozarks with her three brothers a one sister.

A staple of the family farm in the nineteen forties and fifties was a flock of chickens. These chickens were a source of food like no other. Young chickens for fried chicken, hens for egg production, old chickens for making chicken and noodles, chicken and dumplings, or baked chicken and dressing.

Some farms replenished their flocks by the hens setting. Now you don’t choose when a hen sets, they have a mind of their own. When a hen decides to set she changes her clucking sound and becomes very aggressive. She will set on a nest of eggs for 21 days with no intention of moving. She will only leave her nest occasionally for a very few minutes to get food and water. When the little chicks have hatched there is nothing so cute as a hen and her chicks. Another means of replenishing the flock was to purchase day old chicks from a hatchery.

I grew up on a farm where we had a flock of chickens. The chickens provided us with plenty of eggs. We sometimes took eggs to the Farmers Exchange in town where we sold them for money or traded them for groceries.

Each year in the spring we purchased one hundred chickens from the hatchery. These were usually shipped by parcel post. It was so exciting when the rural mail carrier honked his horn, because it meant he had brought the baby chicks. We always bought what was called straight run, which meant a mix of male and female chicks. Only trained professionals can look at baby chicks and tell which sex they are. Even then, they are not a hundred percent accurate.

 Baby chicks have to be kept warm. We had what was called a hover which was fired by coal oil. It was a metal cover that set about six inches above the floor. The little chicks could go under the hover and keep warm. Chickens grow very fast. When our chickens reached the age of eight weeks it was easy to tell the males from the females. We started butchering the males at that age. The young males were what we called fryers. Farm raised fried chicken is special. Since most farms did not have electricity, even a large family had more chickens than they could eat before they got old and tough, so, they canned the chickens in glass jars. So here is how this worked—one  hundred chickens……butcher all but one or two of the males to keep as roosters….keep the females (or as they were called pullets)  for laying hens. When the laying hens got old after a couple of years some would quit laying eggs. The old folks could tell when a hen was no longer laying eggs by checking the hen’s rear end. So a hen that was no longer productive as an egg layer was a candidate for chicken and noodles.

So, here is the star of the story, which is an old hen that had been chosen for chicken and noodles on a very cold winter Saturday. My mother decided it was a good day for chicken and noodles. Like I said it was awfully cold. So, off my mother goes to the chicken pen bundled up in a big heavy coat of my father’s about four sizes too large, a cap with ear flaps, gloves, boots, and armed with determination. She finds an old hen that according to her examination is no longer laying eggs. Mother has made all the right preparations, she has the axe to chop the chicken’s head off, a kettle of water heated to souse the chicken in, as soon as she gets the head chopped off. The head chopping was to be done outside in the cold. The heated water was in the kitchen of the house. So, here’s her plan—chop the chicken’s head off and as soon as it stops flopping around, pick it up carry it into the kitchen, souse it in the nearly boiling water, remove the feathers and butcher the chicken. Sounds good right?  Well, the chopping of the head of was more of a hacking the head off. With its head nearly chopped off the chicken flops around for a minute or so and then lies still on the ground. Mother picks the chicken up and here she comes to the kitchen where my sister and I are watching and waiting. Still bundled up in her garb she soused the chicken in the hot water. This is when the excitement began. That chicken wasn’t dead. It burst out of that hot water and from the firm grip of my mother’s hands with super chicken energy. It flopped around that kitchen slinging blood and water all over everything. Mother still in her outdoor garb is chasing the chicken. My sister and I are screaming and dodging a half dead chicken that had gone berserk.  That chicken slung hot water and blood all over our kitchen.

When the chicken finished it performance, Mother took that chicken back outside and   made sure she completely chopped its head off.  Then she brought it back in the kitchen and soused in the hot water again without incident, the feathers were removed and it was dressed and cooked for chicken and noodles. That’s what we had to eat that day!

I still have a vivid mental picture of my mother chasing that chicken around the kitchen. We have laughed often about that day. (Oh yeah we cleaned up the kitchen)

Jim Gray

Peculiar Missouri

2017