Treasures New & Old; A Tale of Two Chickens

There once were two tails, one on each of two chickens, but they are irrelevant. This is a tale of two chickens.

One chicken was big and one was small, analogously to great-grandfather and young teenager. They were not related to each other and lived on different farms.

However, both were brought up with the minimum of human intervention and interference by the owners.

Both were spared food full of things with scientific-sounding or unpronounceable names.

Both were allowed to live in spaces where the fences were many yards apart and where sunshine was abundant.

In due time, their happy existences came to the (almost) inevitable conclusion to which most chicken lives eventually come.

Separately and on different days one week, the chickens were acquired by a family group of three.

The teenager chicken was bestowed with the information that was a young fryer.

The great-grandfather chicken was handed over with the information that this was a rooster, a tough old bird requiring a full day in the slow cooker.

The house of their ultimate destination had two refrigerators, one upstairs, one downstairs.

By chance, the family member who usually cooked gratefully received one of the chickens, already in its airtight plastic bag, and put it in the downstairs fridge.

Another of the family group received the other chicken, also well wrapped, and with thanks, put it in the upstairs fridge.

Two days before Chicken For Dinner Day, the cook began to thaw the chicken from the downstairs fridge.

She vaguely thought that perhaps she ought to check which chicken was the elder and which the younger, but vaguely thought that either way, dinner would be all right.

The morning when the downstairs chicken was about to go into the slow cooker, when freed from the plastic bag it looked dismayingly small and scrawny.

The cook’s heart sank.

Could three adults be fed adequately on this little creature? Oh, what if--? How embarrassing.

Definitely the cook should have compared the two chickens before thawing only one.

Far too late, a trip upstairs and a quick look in the fridge there revealed a heart-sinking reality: The great-grandfather chicken was the one upstairs, and the tough old bird was huge, really huge.

A label said, “4.5.” This could mean only pounds.

Remedy: More chicken. Quick trip to grocery store.

Back in the kitchen, the cook discovered once again that nothing is simple.

She had failed to look closely at the package of chicken. It was all wings.

Who buys wings for a main course? Wings are scrawny, only tidbits, a snack, unable by nature to supplement a scrawny teenage chicken for three adult humans.

Some day next week, or the next, great-grandfather tough old bird rooster will be placed in a deep tray and left alone till he reaches some temperature above 33 degrees F.

Then he will spend the day in the slow cooker till all 4.5 pounds of him shall emerge aromatic and succulent.

As for the cook. she vows that she will keep her wits about her when planning all chicken dinners in the future.