What kind of mother am I??
When the girls were young, I did my best to make sure they knew their way around the kitchen and could manage cooking at least a meal or two with no problems. From the time they were able to see over the edge of the counter, they helped me with meal prep and cookie baking. Once they were pre-teens, each girl was assigned a night to cook; they chose the recipe, I bought the ingredients, they put together fabulous (and sometimes not so fabulous) fixin's for the family ... mostly on their own.
But there's one thing I clearly forgot to teach them: how to cut up a chicken.
How did I come to realize this horrible mistake on my part? Yesterday Megan and I were discussing ways she and Preston could save money. Raising Bubby is expensive. Living where they live is expensive. Life itself is pretty darn expensive right now. So she wanted some tips.
One relative no-brainer I offered was to buy whole chickens and cut them up instead of buying the much-more-expensive-per-pound chicken breasts.
You'd think I'd suggested she use cloth diapers or head to the farm to milk the cow for Bubby's bottles.
"I don't even know where you buy whole chickens," Megan said.
Ummm ... at the grocery store, I told her.
"But do I have to cut off its head?" Megan asked in disgust -- and in all seriousness.
Oh! My! Gosh!
"Yeah," I told her. "And you have to pluck all the feathers, too."
I truly was flabbergasted. How in the world did I forget to teach this basic skill? It's not like it's knitting or sewing or making homemade jam -- things that are nice to know but not really all that important.
And how in the world can she not remember that I never once brought home a live chicken and decapitated it at the kitchen sink in preparation for our Sunday dinner?
I've done something terribly wrong as a mother.
To remedy the error of my ways, here's the long past-due lesson, Megan. (Brianna and Andrea: You better watch it, too ... as should any of you other youngsters who don't realize there's a whole lot more chicken to be had than just boneless breasts!)
Sheesh ... I'm a scared to find out what other basic things I've forgotten to teach my daughters.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Reader Comments (6)
That's really a handy skill to have, in my opinion, though I had to learn it myself rather than from my mother. Of course in my case, the only thing I learned about cooking from my mom was that if you forget to take the tube of ground beef out of the freezer, you can thaw it in cold water in the sink. I love her to death, but my mother is not a cook.
One way to ease into the use of whole chickens is to roast it in the slow cooker. Something like this -- http://bit.ly/vSwmH -- although I usually stuff the cavity with onions, garlic and herbs, if I have them. It's really tasty and makes great leftovers for chicken sandwiches or other meals. Bonus: It doesn't heat up the kitchen, a great thing in the desert.
My mom and aunt would tell a story about my grandma having to learn to kill a chicken when she married Grandpa and moved to the farm. We should thank our lucky stars we don't have to do that. The image of my grandma standing on a chicken's head and yanking its feet is etched indelibly in my mind.
I'm going to stick with boneless, skinless chicken breasts.
I don't know how to cut up a chicken either. I am so ashamed. My mother cooked all the time, and cut up chickens all the time, but somehow never passed the knowledge on to me. In fact, Rob's grandmother gave us a recipe a while ago for chicken spaghetti -- which is a meal that Rob dearly loves and has fond childhood memories of -- and we've never even begun to consider attempting it because it calls for using a "whole fryer." That's enough for us to set down the recipe card and back away slowly.
I will be watching this video in hopes of being able to one day make chicken spaghetti.
Sounds like this may be my most useful post yet!
My mother-in-law taught me how to cut up a chicken, but it has been years since I've done it. When you master it the first time, you don't forget how to do it. I remember Mama trying to kill a chicken when I was around 8 or 9. I was sitting up in the tree above her, watching. She took that chicken by the head and wrung its' body around and around, then would throw it on the ground. It would get up and run off and she'd chase it down and try it again. She finally just laid the chicken up on the table and chopped its' head off. Much to my horror, that chicken jumped up off the table and started running around the yard. It finally flopped over, dead. I guess that's where the saying "running around like a chicken with your head chopped off" comes from! I don't think I'll ever forget the sight! Nor will I forget the smell when she dropped that chicken into hot water before she plucked the feathers off! Pheweeeeee!! I'm glad Food Lion is just down the street from me!!
I remember that disgusting smell, too, from when we had those millions of chickens living on the farm in Minnesota. And I remember chickens running around with no heads. But what I most remember about live chickens is my sister trying to TRAIN one to do tricks for her 4-H project. Now that I think of it, I wonder if that's one when ended up eating when it proved untrainable ...