Backyard Chickens are the new status symbol in hipster neighborhoods and upscale suburbs, a way to have pretty feathered pets and go green with local, fresh organic eggs. What’s not to like? Okay, aside from the noise and the odors and the expense and the cats and the authorities and the parasites and the thieves and Avian Flu?
Plenty.
Great cover story in the current Smithsonian magazine:
“How did the chicken achieve such cultural and culinary dominance? It is all the more surprising in light of the belief by many archaeologists that chickens were first domesticated not for eating but for cockfighting. Until the advent of large-scale industrial production in the 20th century, the economic and nutritional contribution of chickens was modest.”
– “How the Chicken Conquered the World,” Jerry Adler and Andrew Lawler, Smithsonian
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Oh no! Despite reading Turkey Torching Tips for Guys you have a great big, fully cooked, deep-fried Thanksgiving turkey on your hands. You examine it minutely and discover there’s no little red zip tab to open so you can take out slices. What now?
That’s some big old avian cadaver you got there, buddy. There’s only one manly way to divvy it up. That’s right: chainsaw.
Next Thursday, a turkey will be a welcome guest in most American homes, but don’t be fooled. Alive and free-range, Meleagris gallopavo is a danger to life, limb, and giblets. Wild turkeys are flying into windshields and killing motorcyclists on roads across the country. In Canada, too. A bird even tried to take out a sixteen-wheeler on I-75 in Kentucky.
And the big birds have politics. Turkeys hate the media as much as any Tea Party loon:
Oh no! Despite reading Turkey Torching Tips for Guys you have a great big, fully cooked, deep-fried Thanksgiving turkey on your hands. You examine it minutely and discover there’s no little red zip tab to open so you can take out slices. What now?
That’s some big old avian cadaver you got there, buddy. There’s only one manly way to divvy it up. That’s right: chainsaw.
The National Fire Protection Association claims “turkey fryers that use oil, as currently designed, are not suitable for acceptably safe use by even a well-informed and careful consumer.” Wimps! Thursday is Thanksgiving, when we give thanks for college football and a four-day weekend. That’s when Real American Men generate Code Orange air quality by incinerating poultry on the patio.
Any pantywaist can cook on those SUV-sized natural gas, propane, electric, or gelignite-powered barbecue grills with all those fancy features (good subwoofers do help spread sauce evenly, though). Nah, let’s get ready to deep-fry some turkey. Here’s how:
1. Put Fire Department on Speed-Dial. Keep your cell phone in your welding apron pocket. It is unwise to enter a flaming residence to use the telephone.
2. Purchase more equipment. You can never have enough Real Guy outdoor cooking gear. Buy some new stuff at Home Depot first. Don’t bother with those electronic gizmos at Leading Edge; you can never read the LCD screens outdoors anyway. Williams-Sonoma? Isn’t that the California wine the wife likes?
3. Don’t forget the turkey. Make sure it is big enough to bother with. Double-check to make sure you are not buying a goat or lamb.
Peaceful poultry lovers in the Urban Chicken Movement seek regulations permitting backyard fowl raising, but some activists are takin’ it to the streets. Hell-raising hens are on the loose across the country.
Radical movements flourish on college campuses, and this one is no exception. Emulating an extremist indigenous group at Harvard, a rogue chicken staged a lengthy occupation at Concordia University Chicago. Known only by the code name “Rocky,” the elusive avian anarchist was finally subdued and brought to a detention camp in Palos Park, Illinois for waterboarding fricaseeing interrogation.
